The closure of Heathrow Airport last Friday disrupted the supply of over £543m of goods, including salmon and other perishable foods, according to international delivery expert Parcelhero.
The London airport, which handles nearly £200bn worth of cargo each year, was shut down for a day last week following a significant loss of power linked to a fire at an electricity substation.
Parcelhero’s head of consumer research, David Jinks, claimed the full impact of Friday’s incident on UK supply chains was “likely to have been underestimated”.
“While the disruption to passengers naturally caught most media attention, Heathrow’s closure on Friday also significantly impacted UK trade,” Jinks said, pointing to the airport’s “vital role in UK imports and exports”, meaning the “true cost of the disruption is likely to be considerable”.
Heathrow handles around 48% of all the UK’s air cargo, which is more than all other UK airports combined.
Around £198bn worth of goods, amounting to some 1.43 million tonnes, travels through the airport each year, which breaks down to an average £543m worth of goods travelling through every day, according to the airport.
Salmon among top exports
The top three exported products from Heathrow are salmon, books and medicines. The top imports are chemicals that are used in medicines, plastics and perfumes, in addition to perishable products such as vegetables and flowers.
Jinks added: “A wide variety of foods are shipped through Heathrow. Its major export is actually salmon, and other products include frozen dinners and meals, ice cream, seafoods, chilled milk, cream, cakes, yoghurts, desserts and cheese, as well as ambient foods like biscuits and snacks, tea and coffee, confectionery, condiments and cooking ingredients.
“The impact on food retailers and the specialist companies that serve this supply chain could be considerable, in terms of spoiled produce and re-routing to alternative airports with cold storage facilities, such as Gatwick.”
He noted air freight was affected “just as significantly as passenger flights. Heathrow was due to see nearly 1,400 flights on Friday – crucially, around 90% of the freight the airport handles travels in the cargo bellyhold of passenger aircraft and only 10% of Heathrow’s air freight is carried by dedicated cargo-only flights.
“That reliance on passenger services means delayed freight shipments will continue to compete for space with increased passenger luggage demand as people reorganise their schedules over the next few days.”
Heathrow has dedicated facilities and staff for handling perishable goods, including chilled, frozen and ambient food and beverages. Any upset to these services “is liable to have significant financial repercussions”, Jinks said.
PML Seafrigo, whose facilities were unaffected by the fire, said it was forced to reroute exported goods to alternative London airports, including Gatwick and Stansted.
The company also offered to help those whose freight was impacted by the situation by providing a collection service from alternative UK airports where imported goods had been unexpectedly rerouted.
Some cargo companies were still unable to receive freight through Heathrow into Saturday. And even though all Heathrow cargo facilities are now accepting deliveries again, freight facilities at Heathrow and alternative centres at Luton, Stansted and Gatwick could still struggle with volumes and scheduling for several days to come, the Parcelhero expert said.
“Last month, Heathrow handled 120,765 metric tonnes of cargo. The logistics of rerouting and scheduling even a portion of this volume of freight is daunting.”
The airport closure impacted European and transatlantic trade in particular, the delivery company said, as Heathrow has more routes to the US than any other UK airport. The US is the UK’s biggest individual trading partner and any disruption to those services is significant.
“The final cost of the disruption is likely to total millions of pounds,” Jinks said. “This includes lost perishable items, refuelling and rescheduling aircraft, the idling of equipment and production lines relying on the delivery of just-in-time products and components and the rerouting of goods by road between alternative airports and destinations.”
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