Cargo Chat: MIA’s Jimmy Nares on meeting demand growth at the airport

After setting a record for its cargo throughput in 2020, Miami International Airport (MIA) is on its way to topping last year’s performance with year-over-year growth of between 14% and 15% to an expected 2.67 million short tons (2.42 million tonnes). [caption id="attachment_76649" align="alignright" width="228"] Jimmy Nares, section chief of aviation marketing, Miami-Dade Aviation[/caption] The airport also has historically served as the main entry point for perishable airfreight imports into the U.S., averaging between 60% and 64% of total market share, according to figures from the Miami-Dade Aviation Department. MIA has developed a robust cool-chain infrastructure in support of its gateway role and has played a prominent part in vaccine shipments into Latin America and the Caribbean. With pharmaceutical demand taking off during the COVID-19 pandemic, MIA saw its pharma export volumes grow by 25% year-to-date through September, with no sign that pharma and perishable demand via air is likely to abate soon. U.S. airports have struggled to keep up with the surge in cargo demand, and many — including MIA — are pursuing growth strategies, from adoption of new technologies to major infrastructure overhauls. Air Cargo World spoke with Dimitrios “Jimmy” Nares, section chief, aviation marketing at the Miami-Dade Aviation Department, about expectations for cargo demand at MIA in the months ahead and plans to improve operations at the airport. Air Cargo World: With the gradual return of passenger flights and more frequencies, many freight forwarders have noted cargo capacity has still struggled due to the preference for passenger-friendly destinations rather than for cargo demand. Miami is a hub for passengers and cargo, so what effect has that had on capacity into MIA? Jimmy Nares: Last year, early in the pandemic, most passenger aircraft flights were grounded because of lockdowns around the world, travel restrictions and lack of demand, really, for flying. So we took a huge hit, we went from an average of 126,000 passengers a day in 2019 to in April of 2020, we had under 6,000. But gradually since that time the numbers have been coming back. They’ve been coming back very strong in the past few months. This November, we had an average 129,975 passengers per day, which is higher than our average for 2019. This first weekend of December is even higher than November. I know this is the high season for travel but still, honestly, we did not expect to see these numbers. What we’re seeing now, we expected in maybe 2022-23 to see these numbers, but they’ve come back very strong. And of course, these passenger flights that have come back are also carrying belly cargo, which also helps with the large movement of cargo at our airport. So, yeah, passenger flights have also come back in addition to cargo being stronger than it has ever been for us. ACW: MIA is a major pharma and perishables gateway for the U.S., and in our recent webinar, operators said the needs for better shipment visibility and easier communications are still an obstacle to achieving best practices. What kind of initiatives are under consideration at MIA to improve those processes? JN: Technology is definitely something that the industry sees as a way to increase throughput and make the movement of cargo more efficient. Blockchain technology has been a big initiative among the air cargo community recently. We have a flight tracker for cargo flights, which is designed to make things more efficient in terms of knowing exactly when cargo is arriving and leaving at the airport. But we’re also looking at creating new applications for tracking cargo in general. An air cargo system is something that we are looking at — we’ve been in communication with some of the IT companies that develop the software solutions. So we are exploring that and we’re likely going to issue an RFP [request for proposals] to a few companies to see what they can provide to us. That was starting to take place before the pandemic but stalled a little bit with the pandemic. But that is something that’s important to us, and we’re going to be working to develop an app or an air cargo system to help our air cargo community. ACW: Many operators are concerned that, with the return of passenger flights and operations, cargo will fall off the radar as a priority at some airports. How is leadership at MIA thinking about cargo going forward? JN: For us, I think our airport might be the exception and not the norm. Approximately 82% of our cargo over the past few years moves on freighters, as opposed to passenger flights. So even though it’s a significant amount of tonnage, only about 18% of our overall airfreight is handled on passenger aircraft. But along those lines, this year we will have a record year on airfreight. We had a forecast done about four years ago on where we would be with tonnage and that 2.67 million [short] tons of airfreight we’re going to have this year, approximately, is pretty much on pace with our forecast. We’re forecast to grow in the next 10 or 20 years to almost double what we’re currently handling so we are well aware for us, it’s probably even more important. Since we’re so heavily reliant on freighters at our airport for the movement of cargo, we’re aware that we’re close to capacity with our infrastructure on-airport, we have some older facilities on-airport for warehouse space. We have a capital improvement program that we’re working on, it’s to the tune of about $5 billion over the next 10 or 15 years. But we want to start even sooner on infrastructure improvements because we’re basically almost at capacity at the airport and we’re continuing to see growth. We are exploring the possibility of not only demolishing some older, less efficient warehouse space at the airport, but we’re also exploring the possibility of going vertical just as Hong Kong International Airport has done, to be able to meet the demand that we’re that’s forecasted at our airport.

Cargo Chat: MIA’s Jimmy Nares on meeting demand growth at the airport

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