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AIRPORT SECURITY
Page 38
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Air freight is a highly regulated, niche sector that is difficult to break into Security measures mean air freight is not a sector anyone can enter. All drivers have to be carefully checked, trained, registered and sometimes bonded; and Saints Transport can only take agency drivers from similarly certified concerns. Entry thresholds and operator regulation make it tough just to get on to the airport. The family business avoids subbying for fear of compromising customer service. "It is very much a niche business, 24/7, with some trucks triple-shifted; that's how you make it pay," stresses chief executive Steve Beeches. Where trucks used to return empty, they now run loaded most of the time thanks to advances in tracking and communications technology. Although it has a fuel escalator built into contracts, Saints is unusually placed being a hauler in a sector where, as director Martin Carroll says: "The price of
(Mosel means nothing to JS and foreign hauliers can't affect us.''
And the future?
' Consolidation," says Beeches "If I look at our sales ledger, there used to be six or seven accounts, now there's one large one. In a few years there'll be fewer airlines, freight forwarders and specialist hauliers."