THE NEWLY opened Whitsunday Coast Airport Freight Centre has seen nearly half a tonne of freight come through in its first two days.
Chief operating officer for aviation and tourism Craig Turner said the first couple days had been smooth sailing, with the freight centre seeing a wide variety of products come through.
“It’s been going amazingly; in the first two days we’ve done 478kg of freight,” he said.
“The amazing thing is, we’ve already started doing freight we’ve never seen before – we’ve had 30kg of live lobsters come to us from Tasmania that have gone to Fishi.”
Matt Calder from Fishi Fresh Island Seafood was previously receiving live products at Hamilton Island or having to enlist a third-party courier to transport bulk products from Mackay.
The new freight centre now eliminates the need for that extra transportation method.
“For us, in the way of our bulk product, it opens up a lot of opportunities, from a convenience factor it’s obviously great,” he said.
“Most of our live products or freight would have to go to Hamilton Island, so this is definitely much easier for us.”
In its first days of being operational, the freight centre also welcomed an 8kg Cavoodle puppy, who was traveling from Sydney.
“They got the little puppy off and he was happy. He got straight off the aircraft, straight to the distribution centre and off they went,” Mr Turner said.
Several live mud crabs were also transported via the freight centre, from the Whitsundays to the Melbourne and Sydney markets.
Mr Turner said that the transportation of the crabs was relatively easy because, contrary to popular belief, they can live out of water.
“They just put the mud crabs in, and lay newspaper down, because they can live out of water, and because our timings and connections are so good, they’re really only out of the water for a short time. They just sort of relax.
“I’m really happy with the way it’s working – there’s been nothing to iron out because we didn’t just wake up a week ago and decide to do this – it’s been 14 months in the making.”
