British all-cargo startup One Air is celebrating its first scheduled freighter service with Thursday’s arrival of a Boeing 747-400 freighter aircraft at East Midlands Airport, in central England, loaded with freight from Hong Kong.
The two-year-old airline until this month has been offering ad hoc and long-term charter flights to logistics providers and charter brokers.
One Air and its affiliated sales agency Air One Aviation said Tuesday that the service, tailored to e-commerce and electronics shippers with time-sensitive cargo, will operate four times per week. Shipments will be distributed across the United Kingdom through road feeder service managed by Swissport, the airport services company responsible for loading and unloading aircraft.
One Air began with a single 747-400 converted freighter and now operates three of the aircraft type, including one nose-loading plane originally built by Boeing to haul cargo. It went into the business during a difficult period when the air cargo market was in a severe post-pandemic downturn, but benefitted from the lack of United Kingdom-domiciled cargo airlines after Western sanctions against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced out AirBridgeCargo, a subsidiary of Moscow-based Volga Dnepr.
In late August, One Air took delivery from Boeing of its first 777 freighter and officials expect to receive a second factory-built 777 by the end of the year.
One Air has a complicated ownership structure. The London-based airline leases its aircraft from AeroTransCargo FZE, an aviation asset management company based in the United Arab Emirates and owned by Guneet Mirchandani, a citizen of the U.K. and India. The CEO is Paul Bennett, a veteran of the air cargo industry, who is listed as the majority owner. Michandani is also the majority owner of Air One Aviation and owns AeroTransCargo, a Moldova-based cargo airline, and RomCargo Airlines in Romania. The two cargo airlines have a combined fleet of eight Boeing 747-400 freighters.
At some point after One Air was founded, all the companies were placed under Air One International Holdings.
Air One recently established a permanent office in Hong Kong to enable better access to a large pool of potential customers and help them book capacity through its sister airlines.
“Launching scheduled services is a significant step in AIR ONE’s development and adds a third pillar to our service portfolio alongside wet lease and charter operations,” said Peter Scholten, chief commercial officer of Air One, in a news release. “We are proud that our first scheduled flight departed with a full payload.
“Hong Kong has always been a vital market for us, and this new route provides the foundation for a broader scheduled operations strategy. By 2026, Air One plans to expand frequencies from Hong Kong and add further routes to its network.”
One Air began operating at East Midlands Airport in April 2024, after initially flying between Hong Kong and London Heathrow airport. East Midlands’ central location, lack of congestion, fewer night flying restrictions and cargo–focused ground support has attracted more freighter operators in recent years.
It has also conducted charter operations at London Stansted, Birmingham, Doncaster/Sheffield, Glasgow Prestwick and Cardiff airports, serving points in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, including Amsterdam and Maastricht-Aachen airports in the Netherlands; Larnaca, Cyprus; Muscat, Oman, and Singapore.
Last year, One Air received approvals to operate flights to Japan, Malaysia and several airports in China.
One Air’s expansion is taking place in a volatile trade environment, with growth in air cargo demand down by half to about 5% year over year during the past six months. The decline in volumes has been largely felt on the China-U.S. trade lane, with stronger demand from Asia to Europe.
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