MidAmerica St. Louis Airport director Tim Cantwell told Payload Asia on the sidelines of The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) Air Cargo Forum in Atlanta that both secondary airports have signed an agreement committing each to work together to develop the trade route. “So they are collecting the freight to ship, they’ve got buyers to buy and we’ve got freight to ship the other way to the buyers and we’ve got a conduit down to Latin America,” said Cantwell.

“It’s more than just a sister-airport type of thing,” he said as he acknowledges the unusual nature of the initiative. The agreement focuses on four specific areas for both airports which they have been working on since the agreement was signed earlier this year in January. Specifically: Assist to organise freight originating from each airport to assist carriers; assist air carriers to start new air service; assist all trade route users with government approvals and support; coordinate joint discussions and joint marketing to users of the trade route.

For MidAmerica, it opens of a whole new range of possibilities as the airport currently only deals in charter flights, mostly Boeing-manufactured Apache helicopters going to Bahrain, via carriers like AirBridgeCargo.

But the opening of a US$5.7 million, 3,300 sqm, perishable handling warehouse at MidAmerica in June, by international, grower-owned, year-round, fresh produce marketing and distribution cooperative North Bay Produce Inc., pretty much changed everything. The company selected St. Louis as its distribution point for its produce items, which travel from as far as Uruguay to Northern Canada.

For Ningbo, a major seaport and secondary airport, the growth of sea freight had far surpassed that of its airport, leading it to seek out growth opportunities for air freight. Currently the Chinese airport has no scheduled freighter flights, but instead has charter cargo flights largely to Malaysia and Vietnam as well as belly cargo on scheduled carriers to destinations like Singapore. For its part Ningbo airport is also preparing for the influx of cargo traffic. As part of a $1.3 billion airport renovation initiative, the airport has committed to building a 15,000 sqm airfreight terminal which will include facilities for perishables.

The concept, seemingly out of place for an airport not located on the east or west coast like the big gateway airports of JFK, Miami or LAX, has some obvious appeal. The Ningbo side of the equation offers a market in Ningbo alone of nine million people – and 250 million in the immediate Yangze River region. Impressive figures for MidAmerica, located as Cantwell points out, “in a county of 250,000 people”. But the key advantage is a vast China market for fruit, vegetables, fish and meat in the eastbound direction and electrical, mechanical and pharmaceuticals from some of the over 100 Fortune 500 companies exporting out of the Ningbo region.

And now with the North Bay Produce perishables centre up and running – the only one on-apron, north of Huntsville Alabama, according to Cantwell – it’s just a matter of getting carriers in. “We’ve got six million kilos of fruit and vegetables from Mexico lined up, so all we need is the carriers – if we’ve got the freight, the carriers will come,” he said.

Discussions are ongoing with a number of key Chinese carriers he says, adding the two airports are aiming to have a service up and running by end of this year. The service would entail B747 freighters in the east-west direction and A300 family or B737 freighters in north-south direction.

There are many naysayers Cantwell acknowledges, as it seems this small airport is keen on taking on the big boys of the perishables industry like Miami and others. But Cantwell insists MidAmerica is too small to offer any serious competition to anyone.

“What we’re trying to offer are new avenues for the pie to get bigger for everybody. We’re not in competition with anybody, we’re in a new market area – there’s no international air cargo service in the St Louis area,” he added.