British Airways World Cargo’s newly launched Premia facility is expected to contribute about 15 per cent of its total revenue for the current financial year.

At the moment it accounts for about 11 per cent so there will be a significant growth, says Baba Devani, vice president, sales & customer services, BA World Cargo.
Built at a cost of £15 million  ($27.8 million), Premia is a purpose-built premium handling facility at London Heathrow. The 7,200 sq m facility, adjacent to Ascentis, BA World Cargo’s state-of-the-art general cargo handling centre, will give the carrier 67 per cent greater capability to handle premium freight. 
By using the latest technology to provide world-class customer service and speed on the ground, the building’s design enables freight to move between airside and landside at a speed of 18 m/minute. The material handling system installed within Premia has been designed to expedite the handling of all premium products through utilising fully automated systems for intact freight and semi automated systems for loose freight.
The facility is being used to process BA World Cargo’s three new premium products - Prioritise, a new express offering; Constant Climate, a state-of-the-art temperature controlled product, and an airmail product.
“We invested £15 million in this facility because, as the market gets more and more consolidated both in the airline and in the forward segment, it becomes more important for us to move forward and be able to differentiate ourselves from competition,” says Devani.
Prioritise, the new express product, enables customers to send freight of any weight across BA World Cargo’s global network with every consignment carrying a performance guarantee, meaning that if the freight fails to travel as booked the customer will be entitled to a 50 per cent refund of the freight charges.
The new airmail product enables the business to re-enter the transfer mail market. The huge increase in capacity available for the airmail product in Premia will enable the specialist handling team to deliver consistent processes, allowing them to handle significantly higher airmail volumes whilst continuing to meet standards of excellence.
Constant Climate has been designed specifically for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries for the transportation of highly temperature-sensitive drugs and vaccines and for high value food products.  As the name suggests, freight delivered using Constant Climate will be kept at a constant temperature throughout the journey, through the use of Envirotainer containers - ULDs that are able to keep freight inside at the same temperature for up to 72 hours. 
Commenting on BA World Cargo’s revenue he says commercial revenues (flown revenues plus fuel surcharges) during the first quarter of the company’s current financial  year (April to June 2006) improved 11.6 per cent on the previous year at £164 million.
After the impact of exchange rate movements is removed, commercial revenues were up 9.6 per cent. Overall yields  - revenue per cargo tonne kilometre (CTK) – were up 5.3 per cent excluding exchange effects.   Volumes rose 4.1 per cent to 1,233 million CTKs. Capacity measured in available tonne kilometres increased 4.8 per cent and BA fuel costs soared 42 per cent in the quarter.
Flown revenues stood at £498 million for the financial year ending March 31, 2006, an increase of 3.3 per cent against the same period the previous year. 
Yield (revenue per CTK) was up 3.8 per cent over the year.  Year-on-year volumes stood at 4,933 million CTKs, a marginal decrease of 0.4 per cent.
Promising markets for the company are South East Asia with rapidly growing economies and also stable markets such as the US and Europe offering a lot of opportunities.
In the ME the import sector is growing massively with the growth of Dubai as the hub. Other places such as Doha, Muscat and Abu Dhabi also offer tremendous opportunities.