Recognising new trade opportunities and improving the region’s supply chain are some of the benefits anticipated from an Airfreight study commissioned by Advance Cairns in conjunction with the Department of Tourism, Regional Development and Industry.

Chief Executive Officer for Advance Cairns Ross Contarino said, “We are trying to gain a better perspective of the freight being sent out of our region, to ascertain where it is going, how it is getting there and if there is an opportunity of distributing more through the Cairns International Airport.”

The study is aimed at two major objectives, the first is to see if there are more opportunities to consolidate produce in the Tropical North Queensland region and reduce the amount of produce that is trucked down to Brisbane and sometimes back again to TNQ supermarkets. The second is to see if there is an opportunity to entice further airline operators to utilise Cairns International Airport by providing evidence of possible airfreight capacity.

“The project is a joint effort with not only ourselves and the State Department involved but we have support from the Regional Organisation of Councils, the Airfreight Council of Queensland and TTNQ”, said Mr Contarino.

“We have engaged a very well respected firm of Sydney based airline economists, Strategic Design and Development to undertake the work” stated Mr Contarino.

“We are anticipating the outcome of this research will be better transport solutions for local produce and increased capacity for airfreight, which makes our airport more attractive to some carriers” Mr Contarino explained.

Officers from Strategic Design and Development are in Cairns this week meeting with companies involved with the transport and sale of TNQ produce.