It might be on the roads rather than in the air, but traffic control at Farnborough ‘96 is a complex business.
For TNT Showfreight, the official freight and logistics agent, the week of the show is the culmination of months of careful planning.
Handling the estimated 100,000 cars that will pass through the five entry gates over the seven days is only one of the challenges the company faces.
Having successfully managed the freight contract at Farnborough two years ago, TNT Showfreight, a subsidiary of TNT Express UK Ltd, has had its remit extended this year to include the car parking and in-show traffic.
It is also dealing with all on-site lifting, delivery and warehousing services and will oversee customs clearance for aircraft arriving direct.
The operation requires five cranes, 30 forklift trucks and around 3,000m2 of storage facility.
The man in charge of the operation is TNT Showfreight managing director Phil Powell.
Challenges
He has been on site for the five weeks prior to Farnborough ‘96 to co-ordinate the movements of 6,000 delivery vehicles and more than 12,500 cars that came and went pre-show.
On the Friday before the show opened, his team, of some 50 marshals, drivers, and administrators processed more than 1,300 trade vehicles.
"The aim is to keep the site moving and get people into a car park as safely as possible," says Powell.
"It's a case of trying to get a quart into a pint bottle.
"I've been involved at Farnborough since 1978 and this is by far the biggest yet.
"The challenges change before and during the show.
"The guys out on the entrances are the front line but only the tip of the iceberg."
Logistical nightmares are plentiful as Powell explains: "We had to unload two Russian Ilyushin aircraft carrying all of the MiG support and a Russian helicopter, and remove it from the tarmac, within three hours."
Another big challenge this year was putting into place the huge GE90 engine in Hall 4. Although the Rolls-Royce engines are in fact larger, they arrived early and so, although they required some specialised and sensitive lifting equipment, they posed no problem.
The GE90 however, arrived only a few days prior to the opening.
Negotiate
Says Powell: "We had to negotiate with three police authorities in order to get it from Heathrow on a specially designed low-loader.
"It went under motorway bridges with about 15cm to spare and by the time we got it on site, most of the rest of the hall's displays were in place.
"It took a great deal of patience," he adds.
Source: Flight Daily News
