News

Air cargo transport specialists Saints Transport has put its remarkable return to profitability down to expansion of some of its major clients and huge investment in its 100-strong fleet. For the year to December 2006 the company's pre-tax profit was £663,000 compared with 2005's £183,000 loss. The increase was mirrored to a lesser extent in related company Saints Transport (Heathrow) Plc, where profit almost doubled to £300,000 from £155,000 in 2005.

Turnover increased by £1.9m to almost  £22m for its Ltd company its Plc operations increased sales by around £1.6m to £10.8m for the same period. Saints' chief executive Steve Beeches says 2005's loss was the first in 30 years of trading and describes 2006 return to profit as "challenging". He says the company cannot be complacent. "We had a 10% increase in business a lot of that has been inter-airport trunking services. Obviously, if you are using trunking services like inter-airport air cargo, you fill up trailers more and increase revenue while not increas-ing your running costs," he tells Motor Transport.

Saints has contracts with British Airways and DHL to transport air freight at Heathrow airport. Beeches says the pressure created by such high profile customers has resulted in it running a fleet with an average age of only eight months. "When you have a high profile customer, like the BAs of this world, they want their suppliers to show the same initiative too. There's constant pressure, it's all about presentation.  And our fleet makes us high profile with our livery." Beeches concludes: "Some new contracts were obtained, which helped to increase revenue, but it's mainly due to expansion of clients' existing business."