Mercury Air Cargo is pleased to report that three carriers have increased their flights despite this typically being a quiet time of year. By increasing their flights, the three carriers – Centurion Cargo, Air Bridge Cargo Airlines, and Qatar Airways – are well on their way to growing into the facilities we have provided for them, said John Peery, Chief Operating Officer and Executive Vice President for Mercury Air Cargo.

Qatar Airways commenced in April, with two flights a week and recently increased their flights to three services a week. The flights travel from Doha, through Mexico, and into Los Angeles. Peery said Qatar will commence daily services with a passenger flight beginning January 1, 2016.

Air Bridge Cargo Airlines also commenced in April with two flights a week, and in August they increased to three services a week. These are around-the-world flights, Peery said, from Moscow to Asia (either Shanghai or Hong Kong) into Los Angeles, then through Chicago or Atlanta to Amsterdam, and ultimately back to Moscow. By December the carrier had increased to five services a week. "For a freighter operation, that's a significant increase," Peery said.

But it is an increase that Mercury Air Cargo is poised to handle. Peery said the company built the infrastructure required to handle the increased flights – including square footage, personnel, etc. – based on what the carriers' expansion plans were when they came into the market. "In a very short period of time, we added over 96,000 square feet to our existing Los Angeles operations.

"We built in much larger than what was required initially, and we will grow into our facilities and make them more efficient and economically viable." Peery said.

"They haven't matured into them yet, but we are confident that they will," he said.

Peery said this time of year – fourth quarter – tends to be a strong market, just like a retailer's business. "We've seen a little bit of an upturn since the first week of November," he said, "which was still a month and a half later than normal."

Peery pointed out that Mercury Air Cargo primarily handles consumer products and machinery that supports consumer products. With the volatile economy, an up/down stock market, the Chinese economy, conflicts in the middle east – it all plays into the minds of consumers and affects business. "It's just a very strange time of year for us," he said.

Despite this, there have been a few new contracts that have already, or about to commence. Mercury Air Cargo/ MAC Cargo secured two new contracts in San Francisco with Qantas Airlines commencing three services a week from Sydney, Australia, beginning December 20 and Air France/KLM moving to our SFO office as of December 1.