FedEx scrapping four flights a week from Manchester to US
10.09.08
American freight company FedEx is cutting services from Manchester Airport just a year after its widely-publicised launch, Crain's reports.
Four direct flights a week between FedEx's super hub in Memphis and Manchester using a wide-bodied Boeing MD 11 aircraft are to be scrapped and replaced with feeder flights to Stansted on a much smaller ATR 72 aircraft.
Last year, the company took out advertisements at poster sites and in the business press with the strapline ‘From the M66 to Route 66 by 10:30 next day’. However, the changes mean businesses in Manchester will no longer benefit from next-day deliveries of larger freight goods to the US.
Services for smaller packages, under 68 kilos, will not be affected but some customers in the Manchester area may have earlier cut off times to deliver their packages to FedEx depots and larger shipments will now take two days.
FedEx told the newspaper that none of its 84 employees in Greater Manchester would be losing their jobs as a result of the shake-up, but two workers at the airport were being relocated to the Manchester depot.
A spokesman did acknowledge that Manchester Airport would see a small fall in revenue because a much smaller aircraft would be used. ‘There will be lower landing fees, that is true,’ he said.
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