Royal Gibraltar Post Office and Monarch Airlines run trials for air cargo flights
The Royal Gibraltar Post Office (RGPO) and Monarch Airlines have been working together on a trial service that involves RGPO taking extra cargo space out of Gibraltar. According to a statement issued today (2 September) by Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar (HMGoG): “The trials have greatly reduced the backlog of mail at the airport and HMGoG have now entered into an indefinite agreement.”
The government statement continued: “This new service is in addition to the current British Airways flights already in place. Mondays are the busiest days for air cargo and due to the lack of capacity on this day, some mail was left over for Tuesday flights. The RGPO will therefore resource the Monarch flight to endeavour that all mail is dispatched on Mondays.
“Further, with the help of Royal Mail, the RGPO has been able to use semi-active radio-frequency identification (RFID) to monitor the quality of service of both airlines. Historically, packets containing goods can take a couple of days longer than mail containing only documents. The RGPO, since 2013, has been dispatching mail to Great Britain in two separate dispatches, those containing goods and those that do not. The results are very impressive, as they show that even with late Monday flights more than half of the mail is delivered in the United Kingdom by Wednesday with the bulk of the balance of mail delivered on Thursday.”
Commenting on the agreement, Gibraltar’s Minister for Business and Employment, Neil Costa, said: “Her Majesty’s Government of Gibraltar is fully committed to delivering a first class service in relation to postal delivery. This not only means delivery within Gibraltar but also delivery to the UK and further afield.
“With the establishment of a closer working relationship with Monarch Airlines, we have been able to introduce this service to significantly improve what is already offered. The introduction of the extra air cargo space on Monarch’s flight on Mondays will also improve our air cargo delivery time.
“We have already seen the results of the trials and these, I can say, are very favourable.
“The reduction of mail delivery time, however small, will greatly improve the service being offered to Gibraltar’s individual and business service users.”
