Is SFO changing their attitudes about cargo expansion?

Having previously worked the SFO air cargo market for years, I can attest to the decades-old facilities and lack of available space for air cargo expansion, although we always managed to move cargo back and forth ok. Now there’s news from Air Cargo World that perhaps officials at SFO are changing their attitude about air cargo facilities:

In addition to Southwest, SFO has welcomed Virgin America and combination carrier Aer Lingus. Cathay Pacific Airways will soon add an additional Hong Kong flight. And the airport is negotiating with two international carriers with significant belly cargo capacity which want to serve India, according to one SFO official.

Next year, United Airlines will begin daily service between San Francisco and Guangzhou in the busy industrial region of Southern China. The award is part of an accord signed last July between the United States and China that calls for doubling the number of daily flights between the two countries over the next five years.

But shippers and third-party developers remain guarded about whether the growing attention to passenger flights will find its way to the cargo side. They point to the 48-year old facilities that have yet be rebuilt or replaced, and an ongoing lawsuit involving a third-party developer.
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The airport says it’s more flexible these days, but remains short on available real estate. “Because of land constraints, we’re looking at developing a common use cargo facility run by a third party [common-use handler],” said Gary Franzella, associate deputy airport director for San Francisco International Airport.

SFO and other California airports are in the midst of a massive contradiction. California would rank as the world’s eighth-largest economy if it were a country, and its one of the world’s largest exporters of agricultural products.

But for the state’s major air gateways, the one precious commodity in short supply is space for expansion. From the San Francisco Bay to the Los Angeles Basin, California’s most familiar airports are hemmed in by packed highways, mountains and sprawling suburbs. State officials and private developers have tried to push some of the economic growth to alternative gateways, including former military bases, but only with limited success.

Read the whole thing.