East Midlands Airport and Charnwood

Its proximity to East Midlands Airport gives particular advantages to companies based in Charnwood, especially those that need rapid delivery of high value goods to and from European and worldwide destinations.

Business Travel

East Midlands Airport provides an ever changing feast as new routes are added/changed by the main carriers - bmibaby, bmi mainline, easyJet, Ryanair and Eastern Airways. The latest list of scheduled flights to European and UK destinations can be found through the airport's passenger website

Air Freight / Express Freight

Air freight is expensive compared to road or sea (note that cargo is defined as freight plus mail). Therefore it is typically used for high value articles or low value articles needed urgently e.g. spare parts. Often goods have a high value to weight ratio. Most traffic is for the European or worldwide market.

Express is the "business class" of air freight. It is expensive compared to conventional air freight - customers only use it because they need it. Therefore it is typically of value for sectors such as electronics, machine parts and pharmaceuticals.

Most of the major express carriers, including DHL, TNT and UPS are based at East Midlands Airport and it is now the UK's no. 1 pure freight airport with 30.6% of the UK market (this means planes dedicated to freight as opposed to carrying it in the holds of passenger aircraft). It is also the market leader for mail with 20.2% of the UK market. It loaded / unloaded 292,000 tonnes of cargo in the twelve months to October 2005 (as well as 4.2 million passengers), making it no.2 in the UK after Heathrow for total cargo. Thus it has a national role for cargo. (more about East Midlands Airport's cargo activity)

Cargo Destinations from East Midlands Airport

What does this mean for Charnwood companies?

As East Midlands Airport is a central UK express freight hub, it makes Charnwood an ideal location for companies wishing to sell to Europe. The proximity of East Midlands Airport, as well as other factors such as the presence of the University, makes Charnwood especially attractive for companies involved in production of high value goods or for high technology or knowledge based industries. We already have many such companies in the area.

It means that for companies in Charnwood wanting to send goods to European destinations, they can have them collected as late as 9pm for next day delivery, a real advantage over more distant competitors.

Also freight brought into East Midlands Airport by air in late late evening can go out by road very early morning to destinations across the UK. Nearly 90% of the landmass of England & Wales is within a 4 hour truck drivetime of the Airport (see map below).

Truck drive times to / from East Midlands Airport

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