Air Cargo Facility Analysis: Identifying Trends and Changes - Essay Sample

Introduction

The section of Air Cargo Facility Analysis is mandated with the job of identifying trends that arise in the industry of air cargo. It has a significant impact on the development of the facility, where it identifies the effects where they later recommend different changes that should be done to the facility development standards. Many of the changes that are proposed in the rules usually result in demand for more land. The land is often a rare commodity in many airports, which makes the need for more land a critical step to make. An analysis of this chapter also shows different techniques that can be used to utilize the airport land that exists at the time entirely.

Phases of Development

The development process of the airport facilities is usually done in three different stages, where market diagnostics is the primary phase. Here, a market assessment is done to come up with a real value of the size and growth of markets (Qin, Wang, Chan, Chung & Qu, 2018). In diagnosing the markets, one should answer three main questions. The questions include: How do I develop my market? The cargo market is first identified then a market development strategy is determined through surveying all people that are involved in goods movement.

What are the facility requirements? The requirements of the facility are identified by identifying the type, size, and location of different facilities that are required for market demand satisfaction. Do I have the right facilities? The proper facilities mean that the airport has adequate supplies of storage areas, staging, and cargo buildings (Qin et al., 2018). It also means that the appropriate output of facility users is realized.

The second phase is the project planning of cargo forecasts, also known as individual facilities. This phase includes strategy development of the markets and facility evaluation. In the market strategy development, the question, How do I sell my market?" arises. To sell the market, one should convince airlines and other operators of cargo regarding the profits of them commencing services to your market.

In the facility evaluation, the question, how to develop the need facilities emerge. This question is answered by considering whether the airport operator takes care of the project or uses the private sector for development (Vagner, Jencova & Szabo, 2018). The management and operation of new cargo facilities in the airport are also developed and planned for. The third phase is the project implementation, which is divided into strategy implementation and facility implementation.

Airports and Demands for Air Cargo Facilities

Airports have tended to be late in meeting the demands for air cargo facilities. This lateness has led to a predictable crisis of infrastructure. A shortage of air cargo facilities creates a need for more space and land (Vagner, Jencova & Szabo, 2018). The main idea that should be kept in mind when trying to avoid overcapacity is the building of flexible facilities. Overcapacity, however, has its advantages, such as controlling rental rates and accommodating the demand that is brought about by successful marketing.

All existing users should be served by meeting their local needs. The management of the airport knows that they are short on space when the cargo managers start becoming concerned about distances between aircraft, poor access to trucks, tight space in the warehouse, or shortage of maneuvering areas. These concerns are usually minimal, but they provide early clues for future significant problems (Vagner, Jencova & Szabo, 2018).

Different individuals are responsible for the evaluation and modification of strategies in the airport. They know whether the plan at hand is producing the results that are required, or it has failed in the production of those results (Vagner, Jencova & Szabo, 2018). Evaluation should be done frequently and on a timely basis, where clear points of assessment are established in different strategies. Change is expected in this process, and it always have impacts that are both negative and positive on the air cargo facility.

Facility Security

The requirements of security of the facility are another factor that contributes to the way cargo facilities are built. The criteria for cargo security increase the level of cargo screening (Chandra & Hillegersberg, 2019). Technology changes are known to make facilities inefficient, with some new facilities failing to anticipate the next-generation aircraft. Industrial growth and globalization also affect the air cargo facilities, and an evaluation of the positive or negative impacts of technology should be done.

Facility requirements call for a need to come up with a simple formula for projecting the infrastructure of the air cargo facility. The buildings in the airport area are different from each other, and this is contributed by type and amount of cargo facilities at the airport, airport size, cargo type to be moved, and the cargo operator characteristics (Chandra & Hillegersberg, 2019). Any airport needs to make considerations to utilization rates and carrier inputs before determining rates for facility requirements that are long-term.

Trends in Cargo Aircrafts

The primary trend that is emerging in many cargo carriers is the need for larger aircraft rather than a more significant number of aircraft. A substantial change has been experienced in the industry of air cargo in the past years, where a shift to trucking has been noticed (Chandra & Hillegersberg, 2019). Having different parameters of planning is vital in measuring effectiveness. It is estimated that in the future, there will be larger and more trucks that will require more docks. Different themes that dictate future trends of research are brought out.

The process of strategic planning in airports has faced different critics for the lack of adaptability and flexibility that is required in dealing with airport uncertainties (Chandra & Hillegersberg, 2019). The rapid change in regulations in the security of aviation and sustainability of the environment as well as technology changes and the rising demand has led to rapid changes in the industry of air cargo.

Airport Master Planning

This is a process by which master plans are developed for certain airports that aid in identifying short and long term plans for airport development. The critical steps in this process include identifying conditions that exist, developing forecasts of aviation, determining requirements for the facility, developing alternatives, and presenting the findings for an Airport layout plan (Shepherd, Shingal & Raj, 2016). This approach, however, has faced a lot of criticism due to its inability to deal with future airport uncertainties. Such uncertainty leads to failure in forecasting, mainly when forecasters use faulty assumptions in their forecasts.

Factors that lead to forecasting uncertainty include privatization of the industry, an increase in volatility of demand in air traffic, and an increase in competition between different airports. The SWOT analysis in the sector of air cargo comes up with various weaknesses that are addressed so that they can leverage the strengths of the industry and create a security for the opportunities that arise (Shepherd, Shingal & Raj, 2016). The air cargo industry should reduce its focus on the speed of the transport times and concentrate on making a difference between products based on reliability levels.

Such dynamics cause the air cargo industry to hire more innovative planners. To come up with an idea of air cargo activities that should be accommodated, the airport should first come up with a list of potential customers and their market products (Shepherd, Shingal & Raj, 2016). This is the first step that should be followed to ensure that maximum use is applied to the scarce land in the airports. The development areas of the air cargo industry should be in sectors of airports that have compatible applications.

The site where the industry is located should be flat with good drainage. The cargo carriers should also be placed in remote areas as long as there are adequate facilities to ensure that the aircraft are given sufficient space (Shepherd, Shingal & Raj, 2016). The remote regions also help to ensure that the industry has efficient networks of the road for cases where interchanges between the aircraft and trucks or between the sea and the air are to be done. The cargo buildings in the industry should be placed close to airplanes to enable efficient access to shipments and carriers.

Future Considerations

The future considerations for this industry are that increased activity in the trucking industry will be expected where expanded parameters of planning and more airport activity integration will be put in place (Morrell & Klein, 2018). Trucking will be more integrated with the airport air cargo activity, which will require that there be an adequate landside area which will accommodate huge truck traffic volumes and storage areas for trucks. Using several story buildings in the future will help to increase the productivity of different land areas.

Mechanization and automation will be used more commonly at the airport as the carriers improve the productivity of work. After the trucks grow, airports will be required to consider the increasing need for aircraft ramps that will help in potential growth (Morrell & Klein, 2018). Cargo facility designs are categorized using multi-dimensional scaling, where the analysis unit is made using more than one attribute known as cognitive analysis. The cargo airports are differentiated using different efficiency indicators such as the number of gates, runways, cargo terminal areas, number of operations by the cargo aircraft, and landing grounds.

The challenge that air cargo faces it that the service it offers is challenged by stiff competition from the surface transport in terms of reliability and speed (Morrell & Klein, 2018). However, inevitable delays such as customs inspection and ground holdings play a significant role in making many people opt for other means of transport such as road or sea.

Conclusion

An analysis of chapter four of the North American Air Cargo Guide shows different techniques that can be used to utilize the airport land that exists at the time entirely. Many researchers have researched the topic of comparing performance between various airports, but it has proven difficult for them to analyze data between the operations of the air cargo industry and the facilities they are associated with.

According to the American Civil Aviation Authority, airports must consider their costs and services so that they can improve their performance and improve freights through their airports. Performance of productivity and efficiency, as well as the competitiveness of unit costs and financial data, should be considered in the evaluation of the effectiveness of operation, which helps in the increase of accuracy in the comparison of airport efficiency.

References

Chandra, D. R., & van Hillegersberg, J. (2019). Creating Competitive Advantage for Air Freight Communities Using Cargo Community System: A Case Study in Schiphol Airport. Retrieved from https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2019/adv_info_systems_research/adv_info_systems_research/18/

Morrell, P. S., & Klein, T. (2018). Moving boxes by air: the economics of international air cargo. Routledge. Retrieved from https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781315180632

Qin, Y., Wang, Z. X., Chan, F. T., Chung, S. H., & Qu, T. (2018). A Family of Heuristic-Based Inequalities for Maximizing Overall Safety Margins in Aircraft Parking Stands Arrangement Problems. Mathematical Problems in Engineering, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.hindawi.c...