FREIGHT HANDLED WITH CARE
For managing director Barbara Ford and her team at Air Freight Handling Services, all cargo is precious. 🎁🛩
The business she started 20 years ago handles a large chunk of the freight that travels domestically and internationally through Cairns Airport.
Having built up a career from administrative and sales roles in air freight with Qantas to running their operations in Canberra and Perth, Barbara eventually landed back in the north to start her own business.
Now Qantas is one of her major clients among other big names including Australia Post.
The business expanded with the opening three years ago of the Regional Trade Distribution Centre on Caudron Avenue.
Freight and produce such as avocadoes, mangoes and live lobsters and fish are handled through the export hub and travel in the belly of planes bound for international markets such as Singapore, Fiji, New Zealand, Bali, Japan and New Guinea. 🥑
Showing Advance Cairns CEO Jennifer Spilsbury around the centre, Barbara and operations manager Scott Rhodes explained the steps freight had to travel through at the centre to get to customers. “We are the conduit between airlines and customers,” Barbara said.
Those customers included mums and dads who could walk through the door to do business, freight forwarders and big corporates.
At the centre, the team is responsible for ensuring freight is ready for flight and that includes weighing, documentation, security and even temporary cold storage if needed. ❄️
From pets to post boxes and produce, there’s not much they can’t handle.
Hmmm, maybe some cargo is more precious than others!
Keeping you informed
BDO Nth QLD
For 120 years, BDO NTH QLD has been helping local businesses and communities thrive and in 2026, the firm is proudly celebrating this incredible milestone that began in 1906. As the largest full-service accounting and advisory firm in Cairns, BDO’s deep connection to...
Babinda Electrics
Switched on to region's needs If you’ve lived in the Far North for any length of time, you’ll be familiar with the business Babinda Electrics. Starting in 1968 in the sugar town of Babinda, 60km south of Cairns, this Far Northern success story has grown to become one...
CQUniversity
UNI GEARS UP FOR NEW CAMPUS 🎓 It’s impossible not to get excited about CQUniversity's new campus in the Cairns CBD. 😃 This four-storey education facility, to be built at the corner of Grafton and Hartley streets, is inching closer to construction with a development...




Recent Comments