Air Cargo: a strategic tool for development.

Abstract

Each country's economic growth is highly correlated to the exportation of goods and services that can specify which life span characteristics determine the markets that could be addressed to. The transport of goods by air contributes to the expansion of trading for certain products to more distant markets. The purpose of this thesis is to describe the primary characteristics of Air Cargo, the products and markets that tend to be more benefitted and the possible exploitation for domestic products. The survey was based on the present literature review for the air cargo sector and investigated the possibility of developing a model using regression analysis, to describe the traffic volume for EU and Greece. An approach to analyze further the nature of the airlifted exported goods took place while integrating relevant conclusions from different Greek organizations studies, with particular focus on agricultural products. The analysis extended to qualitative approximate the interest of stakeholders (producers, airliners) through unstructured interviews and attempted to implement the findings on the district of Central Macedonia. The stormy economic environment has impacted Hellenic business confidence and firms are seeking alternate areas to promote their products and services, making this cultivated extraversion attitude an opportunity to harvest benefits in the long-term. The interest to utilize air cargo, in order to reach distant market, is relative strong and regional agricultural products are a mode to establish regional trade gate by increasing the forwarded volume. Still, persistent long-term policy should be implemented to foster potential benefits.