Central China Longhao Lands at East Midlands With Twice-Weekly 747 Freighters

A Boeing 747-400 freighter operated by Central China Longhao Airlines touched down at East Midlands Airport on Monday, kicking off a twice-weekly service from Zhengzhou International Airport that adds another Chinese operator to one of the UK's fastest-growing cargo gateways.

The airport confirmed the launch in a news release. For East Midlands, it's the latest in a string of China-linked wins: YunExpress opened its own cargo terminal there in April to handle package freight arriving on Central Airlines flights, SF Express began Ezhou–East Midlands operations last November carrying e-commerce goods for a distributor, and UK startup One Air launched scheduled Hong Kong–East Midlands service in September 2025 with Boeing 747-400s focused on e-commerce and electronics.

Who is Central China Longhao?

The carrier, which also trades as Air Central, was restructured and established by Henan Civil Aviation Development & Investment Group in 2019. It's state-owned and serves as the main base airline in Henan Province, where it played a key role in building Zhengzhou into an international air cargo hub. Its network spreads across Asia and into Europe.

The fleet picture is modest but growing. Air Central flies several smaller cargo jets within China plus two 747-400 freighters, and says it plans to expand soon. Its current international schedule links Zhengzhou with Liege in Belgium, and Bengaluru, Chennai and Delhi in India.

The US side of the story is more stalled than soaring. The Department of Transportation granted Air Central authority in March to fly to Chicago O'Hare and Los Angeles International, but Flightradar24 shows no operations to either destination have started. A person familiar with the situation said slow operational and safety reviews by the Federal Aviation Administration have delayed the launch. So the UK route beats America to the punch.

What does this change for East Midlands?

Plenty, if the volume numbers hold. The airport — operated by Manchester Airport Group — moved a near-record 413,000 metric tons of cargo in 2025 and has set a short-term target of 500,000 metric tons by 2030, a jump it says would add more than $11.2 million in annual revenue. Through September, volumes were up 5% year over year at nearly 211,000 metric tons. Management is currently advertising for a new head of cargo development, a sign it intends to keep pushing.

The airport's pitch to freighter operators is straightforward. It sits centrally in the UK, suffers little congestion, imposes fewer night flying restrictions than rivals and has built cargo-focused infrastructure. It's also home to the main UK air hubs of DHL Express, UPS and FedEx, and it keeps benefitting from capacity constraints at other airports — a squeeze that pushes overflow traffic its way.

The deeper driver is the B2C e-commerce surge out of China. East Midlands has attracted steadily more Chinese flight activity as cross-border parcel volumes climbed, and each new freighter rotation feeds that loop: more capacity begets more e-commerce cargo, which begets more operators.

Why the UK beat the US to this launch

The FAA's slow vetting process explains part of it. Air Central won its DOT authority seven months ago and still can't start Chicago or LA flights while operational and safety reviews drag on. East Midlands, by contrast, offered a faster path: existing Chinese operator traffic, a YunExpress terminal already processing Central Airlines freight, and an airport actively recruiting cargo business.

For forwarders and e-commerce shippers moving China–UK volume, the practical effect is incremental capacity — two 747 rotations a week from a Henan hub with Liege and India connections on the same network. For East Midlands, it's another step toward the half-million-ton mark. If the FAA reviews conclude and US flights begin, Air Central's two 747s will be stretched across three continents — and the fleet expansion it promises can't come soon enough.