American freight transporter FedEx is cutting services from Manchester Airport just a year after its widely-publicised introduction, Crain's has discovered.

Four direct flights a week between FedEx's super hub in Memphis and Manchester on a wide-bodied Boeing MD 11 aircraft are to be scrapped and replaced with feeder flights to Stansted on a much smaller ATR 72 aircraft.

Last year, the company took out advertisements at poster sites and in the business press with the strapline "From the M66 to Route 66 by 10.30 next day", but the changes to the service mean that businesses in Manchester will no longer benefit from next-day deliveries of larger freight goods to the US.

Services for smaller packages, under 68 kilos, will not be affected by the changes but some customers in the Manchester area may have earlier cut off times to deliver their packages to FedEx depots.

However, larger shipments will now take two days. The American giant created an extra 40 jobs in Manchester last September when it started the flights for the first time and doubled the size of its depot in Manchester by moving to a new 27,000 sq ft purpose built facility in Trafford Park.

At the time, Manchester City Council chief executive Howard Bernstein heralded the investment saying it "tells us the level of maturity Manchester has reached in business terms."

Last September, FedEx said the new flights would increase its daily capacity from the UK to US by 50 per cent and add up to 20 per cent daily capacity from Europe to the US.

FedEx said none of its 84 employees in Greater Manchester would be losing their jobs as a result of the shake-up, but two workers at the airport were being relocated to the Manchester depot.

A spokesman did acknowledge that Manchester Airport would see a small fall in revenue because a much smaller aircraft would be used. "There will be lower landing fees, that is true," he said.

He stressed that only six cargo packages a day were moved to the US daily from Manchester and the changes would only affect a small number of customers, adding: "The only difference for freight customers is that they will not have a one-day service but a two-day service."

Rising fuel costs

Manchester-based Seamus Jennings, sales director at John Good Shipping, said fuel costs and the company wanting to consolidate its services were likely reasons behind the cuts.

He said many freight companies were experiencing difficulties in the current climate as people cut back on sending packages. "It's not good for the city region and for the airport as they work hard to attract these carriers," he said. "As a freight provider, it's not good for ourselves because it reduces the opportunities and options."

Last year's service introduction came at a time when the airport experienced record growth in cargo transport of 10.3 per cent to 166,500 tonnes, as additional services such as Great Wall Airlines, Jett8 Airlines, Air China Cargo and Aeroflot Cargo set up at Manchester airport for the first time.

Earlier this year, Cathay Pacific announced that six out of 14 weekly cargo flights would be axed although it said it was hopeful these would be reinstated by the end of the year.