Podcast: GSP builds case as alternative cargo gateway

Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport is positioning itself as an alternative to congested cargo hubs by offering dedicated handling, flexible facilities and room for expansion. The airport can provide customized services and faster turn times for freighter operators and forwarders moving specialized cargo, GSP Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Tom Tyra says in this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect,” recorded during a recent site visit. “If you’re doing an all-freight operation and it’s a unique build, you have the full focus of our team working on every single operation,” Tyra says. “It’s 100% focus on every operation.” GSP established its cargo operation in 2016 and opened an 110,000-square-foot facility three years later. A subsequent expansion increased the building to 160,000 square feet, while the airport doubled the adjoining ramp to about 35 acres, enough to accommodate six 747s simultaneously. The airport’s master plan provides space to double its cargo facilities as demand increases, Tyra says. “We’re well-positioned for the future,” he says. “If air cargo continues to expand in this area, and particularly across the Southeast, we’re well-positioned to take opportunities as they arise.” Customer needs Cerulean Commercial Aviation, GSP’s aviation services operation, handles cargo ranging from automotive components and construction equipment to pharmaceuticals, flowers and live animals. Its ability to adapt facilities and handling processes to individual shipments differentiates GSP from larger gateways, Commercial Aviation Services Manager Kelly Wiggs says. “Our model is customized,” Wiggs says. “We can customize for your customer. We can customize for the freight forwarder. We can do things that you might not do at a traditional hub like Atlanta, Chicago or JFK.” GSP is also exploring partnerships with secondary airports in Canada and South America as it works to attract additional scheduled freighter service. The airport sees an opportunity to connect South American perishables with markets in the United States and Canada, Tyra says. One of the challenges for GSP will be to continue growing while not losing its ability to customize and personalize its service. “We can get a lot bigger,” Tyra says. “But we want to need to do it in a way that we don't lose track of what's got us here.” Tune in to this week’s episode of “Cargo Facts Connect” to hear Tyra and Wiggs discuss GSP’s cargo facilities, specialized handling capabilities and strategy for attracting freighter operators and forwarders. A transcript is available below. This transcript has been generated by software and some transcription errors may remain. Robert Luke Hello and welcome to another episode of Cargo Facts Connect, the podcast of cargo facts, the publication of record for the air cargo and freighter aircraft industries for over 40 years. I’m Senior Associate Editor Robert Luke, and it's Friday, September 11th. Cargo Facts recently visited Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport and spoke with Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Tom Tyra and Kelly Wiggs, general manager of airline services at GSP’s wholly owned handling division, Cerulean Aviation, to discuss the airport’s role and strategy for supporting stakeholders in the air cargo industry. Take a listen. Tom Tyra Well, what we've got is the operation at GSP started in 2016, and it started out as an operation that was helping a another business partner in the community, auto manufacturer that ran into some difficulties with logistics, making it a whole lot easier to be closer to the plant, so we stood up a cargo operation, a very modest cargo operation. So it's just under 5,000 square feet in a cargo building that was used by our legacy carriers mainly for U.S. postal mail, those types of things. But a lot of the operation was handled on the ramp. It was a 747, a few times a week, but kind of learning, you know, the the cargo business. We learned it very quickly because just three years later, we opened up a 110,000 square foot cargo facility at the end of our runway. Had a 17 acre ramp that could park three 740 sevens simultaneously. We had a partner that was Senator International as a freight forwarding partner, and they since then have been acquired by by Maersk, and still we're very close working partners with them. But we work with all freight forwarders. You know, it's not just a Maersk operating at the airport. So we work with everybody that ships any items can come through and and work with GSP and work with Cerulean Aviation. Soon after, by 2021, we were already well underway with a 50,000 square foot expansion to our facility, so we're up to 160,000 square feet, and we doubled the size of our ramp. We're about 35 acres for a ramp, so now we can park six 747s simultaneously there. We are able and have we actually operate all the fueling on the airfield. We do passenger ground handling. We do charter services. We actually run the FBO as well. So we're able to kind of approach carriers that are they the large carriers with cargo? Are they smaller units that sometimes in other airports coming out of the FBO were kind of the best of all worlds because we can handle any aircraft shipping any item, basically coming through the airport. We have ability to temporarily stand up things like cool chain and those types of things as well. If the if the customer needs that, we have partnerships across all the freight forwarders in the in the region, and what we've found, and particularly since the pandemic, where we were up to 20 some odd flights a week, moving items in and out of the upstate South Carolina region, is that we are a very attractive alternative to some of the larger traditional hubs that carriers operate out of, that sometimes will be a little more congested. There'll be a longer wait times to get docked doors for trucks. They will be a longer turn time on the aircraft, and and frankly, not set up in a way that has the space to accommodate unique shipping. Things like concert movements or even live animals. We've shipped you know hundreds of cows to to Africa for dairy operations. We've done Lamborghinis. We've done Mustangs. We've done helicopter parts. We we have the record actually in 2018. This area hosted the World Equestrian Games, and we actually shipped over 550 horses in and out of this airport for the games that were in North Carolina, which is larger than what the Olympics does. The Olympics averages around 300 horses, so it is a significant movement. Where the team here came up with unique ways to solve the problems, and they came in from all over the world. They were Europe. They came in from Middle East, and we were able to transport them to a quarantine facility where the horse facility where the horse event was taking place, but efficiently moved them. It was a a big lift, but but did it. We routinely see aircraft with tails from around the world. We've been as far as you know Vietnam. You've had Korea. We've had South Africa. Had China flights on a fairly routine basis in and out of here, and we found now that you know because carriers are finding this is a convenient alternative to some of those traditional hubs, they're actually trucking items in from other places. Like over the weekend, we actually have some shipments coming in from the Chicago area. We've had them come in from Texas. We've had them come in from the northeast, where they, you know, pop them on a truck, can gather them all up in our space over a number of days, and then we can load up a special operation and take it out. Or an operation comes in here, then loads up the trucks and then puts it on the highway and takes it to where it needs to go. You know, moving forward, we have we have a lot of space now, but we can also in our master plan, we can actually double our facilities, so we can do another building that's around 160,000 square feet on that same 35-acre ramp that we have. Beyond that, we can also build a duplicate facility of two buildings that are over 150,000 square feet and a ramp that's at 35 acres as well, so not saying that kind of growth can come, you know, tomorrow. But we are well positioned for the future if if air cargo continues to expand in this area and particularly across the southeast, we're well positioned to be able to take opportunities as they arise. Robert Luke Thank you, Tom, for sharing that. You've expanded on some very important parts, and I want to ask you a two-part question, if I may. Of the regions you've seen coming, whether it was Vietnam, South Africa, as you mentioned earlier, which ones have actually started? Have you seen the most volume coming from as of this year? As you start to see more people become attracted to GSP, and in addition to that, with the expansion to the 100,000 tons you just recently spoke of, are you now are you seeing because of the man that you're now obsolete with that additional space and need to expand more, or is it a kind of still a wait and see approach? Tom Tyra Well, first of all, where we're seeing the growth, we are heavily influenced by moving product in and out of Europe. That is, we have some very large partners nearby, auto manufacturers and others that have operations in Europe. So they will send parts and vehicles and you know all kinds of other components into Europe. Particularly right now, Liège is kind of our our biggest airport partner. We also have Han in just outside of Frankfurt, very big partner with us, and then it goes beyond there. But we will see. Frankly, we've up until probably six eight months ago, we had scheduled service into China, into Korea, into some others. Now, some of the contracts that with that freight forwarder changed, and they're kind of moving in different paths right now. But we have really seen business from pretty much around the globe because of you know it's not a something that is a scheduled every single week, but we will almost weekly we'll we'll get calls about hey I need a special shipment or a special flight, and it's all kinds of different products. I mean we'd love to be at a part to to partner with some providers that would have stable scheduled service for whatever the product is, but right now it's a lot of ad hoc or or charter type of operations beyond our regular flights that go in and out of Europe. We are in discussions with other airports, partner airports in Canada and in South South America, we see there's great opportunity there. They also see it where right now that product is going through the more traditional hubs, going through Miami, it's going through Atlanta, it's going through New York, going through Chicago. But as we are a secondary airport or an alternative airport, we're working with other alternative airports, and so can we give the value to those shippers to say, look at this-you have you're the only customer on the ground at that time. You have tons of space to work your operation, and we can do things a little more custom than you could at a larger airport that has much, you know, a lot more regulations. You know, if it's if it's going by belly freight on American or Delta or United, you have certain parameters that you can handle. If you're doing an all freight operation and you know it's a unique build, you have a full focus of our team working on every single operation, rather than hey, that's just another flight in here today, and we're going to move this thing when we get to it. It's 100% focus on every operation at secondary airports, and that's why I think moving forward, a lot of companies will start looking at secondary airports as not just a place to go when emergencies happen, and I got to get this out of here. But I should be there all the time because why am I dealing with the hassles of a of a large traditional hub if I can get 100% customer service all the time? Jay Aelick I was going to ask about Hahn next. I think since we've been talking about partnerships so much, so we were curious about how freighter growth has developed between here and Han since y'all signed that partnership. Was it two, three years ago now? Tom Tyra Yeah, it's probably a couple years ago that we did it, and now the was it yeah two years yeah so yeah because we did it Air Cargo Europe right now the the interesting thing with Hahn is Han we go way, way back with those guys. So it's at least 10 years, probably before that. You know, when we first started up the cargo operations, Senator International was our partner at the time. Now, now it's Maersk. They were flying most all their stuff into Han, and so we had relations. We talked to them. We just didn't get around to coordinating efforts, you know. And and over time, they have a kind of a innovative business development crew. Since that time when we first started up, we built a business development crew as well here. And so we said, you know, why? You know we're both secondary airports. We're both underserved. We both offer the convenience and access and all that type of stuff. Why aren't we? Why aren't we approaching people together and and sharing contacts and information? And and so we signed a sister airport partnership, and we we we went on a tour. We visited their facility, met all of their folks, and now they they don't have a wholly owned operation like a Cerulean, but they but they are working very closely with with their freight forwarders on on the property. Kelly Wiggs They're doing the ramps. Tom Tyra Yeah, doing the ramps, and and they've got lots of space just like we do. So we had a great relationship with them while we were in Germany. Then, within a month or two, they came here, showed them around, and talked to some business partners and others, and they they loved the place. And so, we finalized the agreement. And since then, we've had things like I think the Mustangs went in there. I think there was some heavy equipment. Kelly Wiggs We don't have scheduled service. Yeah, it's reciprocal at the moment. We did for a number of years, and that was a I'll say a great relationship. We had a lot of access to them when we went over there. We kind of strengthened that, and this partnership strengthened that. And we had, we did have a an emergency for a customer this winter, that really showed how that could smooth the process from side to side. And it was the constant communication. It was the constant emails. It was them telling us, "Hey, this bird's not going to go out on time. It's going to be an hour late to you because one of our deice trucks, you know, has a problem or whatever, whatever it is, or a truck is late. But that communication really helped the final customer because we were able to give real-time updates rather than saying, "Well, when the flight goes in the air, then you know how long it takes to get here. It wasn't that we had great communication. It was, hey guys, could you build this this way? It makes it easier for us to, you know, fork it off and gets it on the trucks faster. So that open communication that we have with VG Cargo and Hahn Airport, it it has really sped processes for charter operations, but especially for that emergency time for that customer. Tom Tyra Yeah, and so at conferences and things where we're together, we say, "Hey, we just ran into this prospect; they really need to talk to you. Or, "Hey, this you will get a call. We we you know our business development." Team has a almost a monthly call with them just to talk about what's going on in each market. Hey, we have this provider doing such and such, and hey, they're going into this other airport. Hey, but they they actually once they go to that other airport, they're trucking next to our airport. So, can we jointly you know approach these guys and try to move these operations here and there, and like I said, it's always a changing the mindset. It's a constant effort to try to get people to continually they'll they'll use us, and then you got to remind them, you know, when it comes up again. But that's and we're looking for more partnerships like that. Robert Luke I was about to ask, what other airports are being considered? Tom Tyra Yeah, so we so we're we're we're chatting with some folks up in Canada, and we're you know they're working through some depends on the country and who's the ownership of the airport. You know how how quickly some of these things go through and how much pageantry that has to be involved and sign-offs and things, but there's there's an airport up in in Canada. There's one in South America. We'd like to chat about. There's a couple of them in the United States that we wouldn't mind doing a little bit more work with secondary airports. That you know they will not so much. We can do some between us, but is there kind of the triangle? You know, something comes in there, then goes back to somewhere in Asia or Europe, and then comes into our place, and so you don't have enough for this region, and don't have enough for this region to do something all the time. But do you have enough to do it half, or maybe there's three airports in there, and you go two times, two times, two times. Now all of a sudden you have a six day a week operation to connect and you know to places in in overseas, and so it's a little more complicated to get all that together. But we we're hoping here that later this year, this calendar year, we're hoping to announce another one, and then there may be one a year after that. Robert Luke What would be the vision of GSP as far as attracting more wide-body operators to the airport, and how could what is what are some of the approaches you're taking to get that attraction turned into a consistent, regular operation? Tom Tyra Yeah, so we we have the facilities. A lot of smaller secondary airports don't have the facilities we have. We have an 11,000 foot runway. We're Index C Fire. We have U.S. Customs on site. We have brand new facility here. You're working directly with the airport in handling your your flights. It's not hey you're working with a tenant of the airport and you know if you're not getting the service that you need, you know you have to work it out with them. You're working with us, and every single flight is important for us. And and you get a decision on things that you have and turnaround almost immediately. All of our equipment is amongst the newest that you're going to find at airports, and we are heavily equipped with all of the the items from deicing to tugs and and tractors and and forklifts and everything that you would need. We're not going to have to go out and rent a bunch of equipment to handle so special operations. We have those things, and so it's a total turnkey type of operation. They come in and simply call our team and say, "Hey, I I need to move this product. Can you guys do that? And and generally, it's a absolutely yes. We can do that. And when do you want to move it? That's a that's a pretty enticing sale. The challenge we've had over time is that a lot of the companies, even though they get frustrated with large hub operations and traditional hub operations, they are traditional. They are what is known. You know the pain that you're going to get, and you you're familiar with it. Going to something brand new, it takes a few times of them using us to go. Okay, maybe they were really on their best behavior that first flight, and it really worked. But then the second time, you know, that was just like just as good as the first one, and you know what, that's just as good as the next one. And we get them to where, hey, you know what? Now's now's the time that we really need to start redirecting our product. So we'll have a handful of folks with each of these operators go. We love GSP and we love Cerulean. They really take care of us. It's then getting everyone else in the company and all the chains to go against the traditional, where I know, you know, that that's where you're going to have to ship things through, and you're not. There's always an alternative to going through there, and you know when you have freight forwarders and schedulers and others, sometimes they have lots of stuff coming in. And the easy go to is, okay, it needs to go to U.S. It's JFK, it's Atlanta, it's it's Miami, it's Chicago. That's the easy one that we know. We don't know what a GSP is, or we don't know some of these other secondary airports in the U.S. like Rockford or Rickenbacker or some of those places like that, but we all offer very enticing, once you get the boots on the ground here, they'll go. I don't know why we're going to from those other places. It's just convincing everybody else within their chain. Kelly Wiggs It's building awareness. Yeah, it's the concert perfect example as we got that going on this weekend, we've had people that well, I don't know. You know, I haven't ever heard of this airport, or you know, we don't have any experience here. Once we got these guys with experience, the carriers, the the brokers involved, freight forwarders, even the concert build staff themselves. There's when we've shown them what we could do in the space that we had and how organized it was, how clean the facilities were, how we could dedicate space to a real design build process. They won't go anywhere else. I mean that's that's exactly why this weekend's concert, it's not happening anywhere close. It's being trucked across the country to come specifically to go out of GSP. A lot of people say, "Why? Why? Why would you do that?" When they come and see our warehouse and see how our team works, then they understand why. Robert Luke And just to kind of speak to that, Kelly, how important is it that you guys can now also, in addition to giving that dedicated one-on-one service that would definitely benefit the brokers and the carriers, to being able to offer them expansion opportunities at an airport that has so much acreage and land available? Kelly Wiggs We, that's one of our greatest assets. We've got room to go for growth. You know, our I'll say our model is customized. We can customize for your customer. We can customize for the freight forwarder. We can do things that you might not do at a at a traditional hub like Atlanta or Chicago or JFK, because they don't they've got so much. They don't have time nor the willingness to do that. We we've got that willingness. We've got the space, and and we can really customize things for our customers. And and I believe, the same goes for land parcels for construction of facilities, ramp features. The airport's open to to expansion to custom. Jay Aelick Could you give us an example of that customization? Kelly Wiggs Yeah, I would say this this weekend is a perfect example. You show me a hub that has 100,000 square foot warehouse that can do a four 747 build in one weekend, basically one and a half days is what we're going to do the build on by laying everything out for screening, design, and build. That's you know that's what we can do. We've had smaller shipments of like the flowers, cut flowers, pharma things that they might only be a two-week or a two-month period, but we can bring in reefer trucks. We can bring in you know extra personnel. We can design a process. We had a customer that's in the upstate of South Carolina that brought a shipment in through JFK, and they had 60% destruction of the equipment that they could not use. One of our freight orders that we have a good partnership with called us and said, "Hey, you know, could you guys do this? Can you do this? We brought it in. We talked to the customer. We went to the customer facility to talk to them of why is this important? Why can't you touch product here? You know, how do you how do you move it on your yard when you're building this? We came up with a better process. We you know we wrapped our heads around it. I've got intelligent industry leaders as as my team here. We came up with a customized solution that it reduced the damage to zero. Robert Luke Interesting. As we speak on just customization, as you look at the market this year, and of course, there's a lot of great challenges the market is undertaking right now, but it still grows and it continues to thrive. What are some areas that you're seeing opportunity for GSP, and as you look at the market today, and how is that translated into how much throughput the airport has seen thus far this year? Tom Tyra Yeah, so there's there's always going to be we think a stable flow of automotive moving through this area. You know, not just with large partners like BMW, but we have Volvo, Mercedes, and all kinds of other automotive in the in the southeast, and we other have other transportation units. There's Oshkosh Defense, which is building all the U.S. Postal Service vehicles and things. So there's a lot of auto manufacturing. With that, is may not be moving mail trucks, but we may be moving parts for mail trucks or parts for their assembly line or you know something else that they need because you can't have that line down and say oh we're just not going to work today. You need to have that. You can't have downtime at the factory, so that's when air really comes more valuable. But but we do see that there is a growing onshoring of things like pharmaceuticals, other things that the U.S. really isn't set up in a way to really take a lot of that immediately, and I think they're going to need to start looking at places that have land, have opportunity are well connected geographically, and can we distribute that? That they'll start looking at places like us as more of that onshoring happens. If it continues, it certainly seems like that's happening. But it's it's years to build factories and to look at moving customers. But there's only so many places. You're not going to go to some of these traditional places, and you're going to have to tear something down to build something new. Here, you've got green green space, and then you can build it as you need it, and build it at the you know at a level that demand will warrant, and then you can expand it as demand continues to grow. You can't do that very many other places. We see the same thing with really the logistics of avoiding some of these very large traditional from South America on up, on up to Canada. In fact, we've been having some discussions for a few years now between working with partners in Canada and working with partners in South America, and can GSP be a middle bridge, moving things like seafood, moving flowers, moving other items between those places, where we have demand from GSP to Canada, GSP to South America, but then South America to Canada and vice versa. And is there a way that we can move that and do it where we can get a a carrier willing to put an airplane in that will sell to anyone, any freight forwarder, not just a specific chartered out a flight, but I'll sell space within there. So you may have 10 different freight forwarders that have a little bit of product, not enough to justify a full flight, but if you have a little bit. And you have a little bit, and you have a little bit. Then we're we've got a a stable service, and I think we're getting close to that. Some of it is this changing mindsets a little bit because the freight forwarders aren't always used to working together. They're working against each other, trying to steal each other's customers and trying to outbid each other and all that stuff. Some of this is getting over that of will the partner you're working at look at your way bills and try to steal your customer or not? You know, is there is there enough where we know that you're going to make all your customers happy because you're going to take even their small amount and put it in something that's expedited, rather than telling them, yes, I've got to truck it to another place. I kind of put it on belly freight. It's going to sit in a warehouse for three days, and then it's going to, you know, you know, finally get to where it is. Or, you know what, GSP has a flight that goes out every two days, and you can have it. You know, you know the scheduled time. Just have it here by whatever time at the dock door, and the Cerulean folks to take care of it, and it's going to go. That's where it's just a constant effort of changing mindsets of how the industry has been thinking, how people in the industry go to the quick solution, maybe go to that next solution, and the ones who do will really see the benefit because they'll they'll the guys who don't will wonder like how how'd this small guy get you know such a foothold into whatever the industry is well because he's faster to market he's he's got less damage he's got more predictability and frankly he can call up and say you know that operation I need this something special on that, and then we can make that happen. Where you go into that and you go to a an L.A. or a Chicago or something. I need something special, and they went. No, this is what we this is what we do. You know, this is we're going to move it. We're going to move it in volume, but this is what we do. Kelly Wiggs Instead of being a small freight forwarder. You get that collective bargaining power as as a group that can take that to the airline and see real savings, and then coupled with us, you're going to see the additional the speed to market. Robert Luke So would it be the goal of GSP to stay within this niche of being customizable, Direct point-to-point service with the customers, whether it's the broker or the operator, or are you looking to get to a point where you have the growth and size of Atlanta or Chicago, and just expand why or why not that is your vision or goal? Tom Tyra Yeah. Well, I think I think well we have the opportunity. We're not going to become an Atlanta or a or a Chicago. It's just a lot of that is built on the belly freight of the passenger aircraft that are going to go all over the world. The demand here for passenger aircraft that will continue to grow. Our region is growing by leaps and bounds in population, so that will grow. But it's never going to hit an Atlanta, even a Charlotte or, you know, Philadelphia, any of that, any of that size, you don't have the hubs. So yeah, so so that's that we we're never going to get that size. I think it's something where we can scale up and keep the same level of high service that we have, and basically we can double or more what we do today, and still keep that same level. And I think having an ability to build on that, one of the challenges for us will be is if we continue to grow and we lose that ability to customize, we lose that ability to personalize how the service is done. I think we then just become just like any traditional hub, right? You want to keep that separate. So there is some of that we're never going to get that big, and that's okay. But we can get a lot bigger. But we want to need to do it in a way that we don't lose track of what's got us here. Robert Luke So what we'll do next is just probably ask maybe one or two questions outside on the ramp, Jay Aelick Okay, so we saw that in 2025, GSB had 11% cargo throughput growth. Are you expecting to see that sustained going through 2026 and into the future as well? Tom Tyra Well, I think what we're going to see is a little leveling off of some of that activity, mainly for world events, but I think for the rest of 26. But I think 27 looks much more robust. So we we have a really good feeling that 27 we're going to be back on the growth path again. I don't think we're going to be down this year. I think we're going to be stable. But I think 27 and 28 look very very good for for GSP and Cerulean. Kelly Wiggs Yeah, I would just add, you know, this year compared to 2025, we've seen a lot of growth in the charter activity that we've had, wide body and the the Hotshot Charter that supports the automotives in the region. So I would say steady growth, maybe not as quite as high as that 11 percent. Robert Luke So speaking on growth and operations, what is the normal turnaround time for a 747 freighter that you guys normally handle on a daily basis? Kelly Wiggs So typically for our scheduled service, we have a four-hour turnaround, which is a little longer. Usually a three-hour, three and a half hour is is probably industry standard. The reason we have the four hour is so that it gives the customer the opportunity to ship a lot of last minute freight, some just in time deliveries to get out, and that gives them a broader picture of what they're able to get over to us since it's customized for that customer. Robert Luke Okay, and Kelly, just speaking on some of the specialty freight, can you break down some of the specialty freight operations that you've handled? I know you mentioned a concert initially, but what are some other charters or air freight operations you've handled here at GSP? Kelly Wiggs Yeah, so we've had we've had in the concert equipment. We've done very well at that, but we've also done race teams. We've had the Lamborghini Trofeo Championship race teams from America to fly over to Italy. We had several Mustang charters and various race groups from that, we have seen a lot of large industrial machinery such as bulldozers and and military items going out. Also, live animals such as cow, horses. Also, a lot of large, oversized pieces that requires dual loader nose nose load operations. So, pretty much, if it's specialty or an oddity or something that doesn't fit in the normal box, it'll usually come through here. Robert Luke Okay, and as you look at your operational platform and capabilities, you can currently handle six 747s right now on the ramp. Are you? When do you expect to expand out to the additional two to get up to eight, as initially mentioned in your plans for expansion here at GSP? Kelly Wiggs it would probably be at a point where we see more customer growth. Right now, we're we're really comfortable with the ramp size that we've had. There have been times that it's been very full, and there's been times like today where you don't have a lot of activity in the space. So we're working well with the six hard stands that we do have. I wouldn't say immediate, but it could be customer-driven and base customer-driven. Robert Luke Okay, and just to wrap things up, I want to ask this to both you and Tom, to those customers or listeners or potential customers rather, industry stakeholders that may hear this. Why would GSP be a good fit for their operational needs and strategy going forward as you continue to expand and build presence for the airport? Tom Tyra Yeah, well, I think they'll find that GSP is geographically located in the right spot or right in the middle of the southeast U.S. which is the growing area. We have access to highway. We're within a mile and a half of Interstate 85, 26, and 95. And you know we have an ability to customize every single shipment that we have coming through here. It is nothing is ever the same in any any shipment. We can change at the last moment. We can adapt, and I think the customers coming in here, no question or no request is anything that we haven't already heard and can handle. Robert Luke That was Tom Tyra, vice president and chief marketing and communications officer at GSP, and Kelly Wiggs, general manager of airline services at Cerulean Aviation, speaking with Cargo Facts during our recent site visit. And that’s all the time we have for today. For more coverage of the freighter aircraft market, visit cargofacts.com. Thank you very much for tuning in, and join us again next time. Subscribe to Cargo Facts Connect on iTunes or Spotify , or download the episode on Transistor . Cargo Facts Symposium 2026, the premier event for the freighter aircraft and air cargo industries, will take place in Nashville, Tenn., on Oct. 21-23. Find out more and register here .

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DHL engages Awesome Cargo for A330-200P2F ACMI

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