UPS sees HK as key hub
UNITED Parcel Service (UPS), the United States express cargo company, is planning to make Chek Lap Kok its Asian hub for its flights to Europe in a move that will strengthen Hong Kong's role as the region's airfreight centre. Charles Adams, UPS Asia-Pacific president, told the Hong Kong iMail: “Hong Kong is a good place for Europe because there is more volume.'' Speaking after the opening of the UPS transshipment hub at Diosdado Macapagal international airport (DMIA), formerly Clark airbase, about 80 kilometres north-west of Manila, Adams said UPS would use DMIA to consolidate European-bound freight from Southeast Asia. Planes would then transport this express freight to Chek Lap Kok “where we would mix it with Hong Kong cargo and match up with the rest of volumes from north Asia''.
Consignments would be flown to the firm's hub at Cologne, Germany, for onward distribution within Europe. UPS operates 168 intra-Europe flights a day to 75 airports.
Return flights carrying Asia-bound consignments would touch down in Hong Kong to be split into shipments for DMIA and north Asian destinations.
Contrary to some media reports, Adams said Hong Kong was never a contender for the Asian transshipment centre that had been opened at DMIA.
He said the Philippines was chosen because of its location.
''We considered initially every country in Asia, including Cambodia. We always came back to the Philippines. Why? Location. The airfield is also rarely shut down by weather.'' Adams said UPS' inability to operate direct flights between Hong Kong, China and Taiwan was also an issue. This was one of the reasons why UPS did not bid for the rights to build and operate the planned express cargo centre at Chek Lap Kok.
''How could we operate the facility on only one leg?'' he asked.
UPS is using Philippine Airlines' traffic rights between the country and Hong Kong to serve the new DMIA hub. Adams said Hong Kong could only be launched as the cargo giant's north Asia hub after a new air-services agreement had been reached.
A third round of discussions between Hong Kong and US negotiators is scheduled at the end of this month or early in the next after the second round broke up in February.
''I'm very optimistic that there will be a deal,'' Adams said, who is pushing for “opened skies, not open skies'' _ greater liberalisation rather total deregulation.
He believed changes are also needed at Chek Lap Kok to give cargo operators more control over their consignments. “The only issue we take exception to really is the right to self-handle cargo. I don't know if we would, but we would like the right. We would like the option,'' Adams said.
UPS has to use Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals (Hactl) to load and unload aircraft, store and process shipments. Adams said that while UPS was happy with the service from Hactl, self-handling would give the carrier more control over consignments.
He believed DMIA would become “the cargo airport for the Republic of the Philippines'' in two or three years. He said that although the Clark Development Corporation needed to carry out substantial repairs to taxiways and parking stands, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and other officials were keen to make DMIA the nation's air-cargo centre.
As far as UPS was concerned: “Over the next 12 months we want to settle in. We are looking at bigger aircraft, probably connecting Cologne using Boeing MD-11s. We'll probably use MD-11s running to the main Pacific hub in Anchorage.'' UPS would also steadily increase the number of more point-to-point services. “The next big move is the launch of Japan services on April 18,'' Adams said.
