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Air China agreesto $50 millionsettlement

DUBAI AND LARGE CHARTERSHELpING LYON

ACF MARKETINGOppORTUNITYFOR ADp

HIGH QUALITYpERISHABLESIN DEMAND

LACK OF SLOTSHOLDING BACKAMERICAN

The weekly newspaper for air cargo professionals

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Air China has agreed on a $50 million settlement in a US civil antitrust litigation case over a price-fixing cartel, but denies any wrongdoing.

The carrier is the latest to settle and agree a payment and it is subject to ap-proval by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Air China is alleged with other airlines, to have violated antitrust regulations in the US by concertedly levying inflated surcharges, jointly agreeing to prevent discounting of airfreight shipping services prices, agreeing on yields and allocating customers to fix, raise, maintain, or stabi-lise prices of airfreight shipping services.

Air China says: “Neither the compa-ny nor Air China Cargo acknowledges any wrongdoing or liability on the part of the company or Air China Cargo in the settlement agreement and there is no admission of any wrongdoing or liability in the settlement agreement.”

Robins Kaplan LLP says the settle-ment bring the plaintiffs’ total recoveries in the litigation to almost $1.2 billion and leave just two defendants - Air India and Air New Zealand to face trial in September 2016.

TNT Express has agreed to sell TNT Airways and Pan Air Lineas Aereas to ASL Aviation Group in the first half of 2016, to meet Euro-pean Union (EU) rules for the proposed 4.4 billion euros ($4.9 billion) takeover by FedEx.

Ireland-based ASL will take over the airline operations of TNT Airways and Pan Air opera-tions from the moment the sale is completed, and is expected to maintain contracts with partner airlines, contractors and suppliers.

TNT Airways and Pan Air employees will become part of ASL Aviation Group upon com-pletion and current terms and conditions will continue. TNT’s fleet is set to grow from 90 to 130 aircraft after the sale.

Under EU rules, foreign investors cannot own more than 49 per cent of a European airline and

control of the firm must remain in EU hands.TNT’s Liege ‘Eurohub’ will remain the air-

ways hub and is not included in the airline sale. It will remain as part of the FedEx-TNT combination.

TNT chief executive officer, Tex Gunning says: “I am really happy to report that great progress is being made in planning the integration of

FedEx and TNT. In anticipation for closing, we had to find a new owner for TNT’s airlines to comply with aviation regulations.”

ASL Aviation Group chief executive, Hugh Flynn says: “We are delighted to agree on this key strategic step in our growth and it underlines our commitment to be the pre-ferred neutral aviation services provider to the intended FedEx-TNT combination once the transaction closes.”

With a European market share of 17 per cent, the combined FedEx-TNT will be Europe’s second-biggest express business, behind Deut-sche Post’s DHL and ahead of UPS.

FedEx and TNT Express have obtained unconditional approval from the EU for their proposed merger.

FAA hands out safety alert over lithium batteries

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued a safety alert last week to US and foreign commercial passenger

and cargo airlines, urging them to conduct safety assessments to manage the risks of transporting lithium batteries as cargo.

The FAA also gave guidance to its own inspectors to help them determine whether the airlines have adequately assessed the risk of handling and carrying them.

When moved as cargo, lithium batteries can be a fire and explo-sion ignition source and fuel to an existing fire. When subjected to overheating they can explode.

Testing has been done by the FAA, which it says has show the “potential risk of a catastrophic aircraft loss due to damage result-ing from a lithium battery fire or explosion”. The FAA says cargo fire suppression systems cannot effec-tively control fires.

The International Civil Avia-tion Organization and Boeing and Airbus previously advised airlines about the dangers of car-rying the batteries as cargo and

urged carriers to conduct safety risk assessments.

The FAA says: “Hazardous materials rules ban passenger air-lines from carrying lithium-metal batteries as cargo. In addition, a number of large commercial passenger airlines have decided voluntarily not to carry recharge-able, lithium-ion batteries.

“The safety risk assessment pro-cess is designed to identify and mitigate risks for the airlines that still carry lithium batteries and to

help those that don’t carry them from inadvertently accepting them for transport.”

Last week, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) issued two safety recom-mendations, calling to “physically separate lithium batteries from other flammable hazardous mate-rials stowed on cargo aircraft”.

The NTSB says this is to estab-lish maximum loading density requirements that restrict the quantities and flammable haz-

ardous materials. The NTSB says these are addressed to the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), are derived from the investigation it participated in of the 28 July, 2011, in-flight fire and crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 991, about 80 miles west of Jeju International Airport.

NTSB chairman, Christopher Hart says: “The NTSB urges the PHMSA to take action on these safety recommendations to reduce the likelihood and severity of potential cargo fires and to pro-vide additional time for the crew to safely land a cargo aircraft in the event a fire is detected.”

PHMSA generally cannot issue regulations or enforce require-ments for the safe movement of lithium cells and batteries that are more restrictive than international regulations.

The Air Line Pilots Associa-tion says US Congress must allow the FAA to fully regulate shipment of lithium batteries on passenger and all-cargo aircraft, and outline in dangerous goods standards and regulations.

ASL Aviation Group to buy TNT Airways and pan Air Lineas

Volume: 19 Issue: 6 15 February 2016

aircargoweek.com

NEWSWEEK

aircargoweek.com

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (pic-tured) handled more aircraft and passengers than any other airport in the world in 2015, and

also saw its cargo tonnage levels grow.However, the gateway is well below

Hong Kong International Airport in the cargo tonnage stakes and last year it han-dled 626,201 tonnes of cargo, which is a 4.15 per cent increase over 2014’s total of 601,270 tonnes. In 2015, 882,497 flights took-off, a rise of 1.63 per cent on 2014.

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta could be set to grow freight levels as the US Federal Aviation Administration has approved the airport’s Master Plan in 2015, enabling the gateway to grow further over the next two decades.

This expansion plan calls for construc-tion of a sixth runway, and development of

the airport’s cargo facilities.Across the pond in Europe there was

some disappointment for the month of January, as freighter traffic fell at both Brussels Airport and London Gatwick Airport.

In Brussels, volumes declined by 4.7 per cent to 25,244 tonnes, with full freighter dropping by 11.5 per cent to 9,545 tonnes. Integrator cargo stayed about the same at 15,699 tonnes while bellyhold rose by three per cent to 11,720 tonnes.

The gateway put the fall down to Ethi-opian Cargo leaving in November due to the lack of traffic rights, moving to Maas-tricht Aachen Airport in the Netherlands.

Gatwick Airport’s cargo tonnage vol-umes continue to slide downhill, which is in stark contrast to passenger traffic which is rising fast.

In January, the UK gateway handled 5,231 tonnes of freight, a fall of 9.7 per cent from the 5,796 tonnes in the same month last year.

The moving annual total is even more significant, and cargo has dropped 17.3 per cent in the last 12 months to 72,846 tonnes from 88,087 tonnes.

However, Gatwick could well see cargo tonnage figures increase this year though as 11 new routes are started to all regions of the globe, including to Hong Kong, Lima and San Francisco.

2 ACW 15 february 2016

Atlanta’s cargo rises and still the busiest for flights

AEI scoops conversion

AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERS (AEI) has signed a contract with San Francisco-based World Star Aviation to provide an 11 pallet position B737-400SF freighter conversion.

The aircraft built in 1990 (MSN 24796) is standard gross weight and is being modified at Commercial Jet’s Dothan, Alabama facility. The freighter will be re-delivered to World Star in June of 2016.

AEI explains the B737-400SF is the only passenger to freighter (P2F) conversion product that offers operators 10 full height container positions.

This capability is achievable it says due to AEI’s main deck cargo door location which is approximately 40 feet further back than most conversions.

The additional container position increases AEI’s volu-metric carrying capability by 10 per cent which places the freighter in a class by itself.

The flexibility has been designed by AEI to allow cargo op-erators to immediately adapt to multiple ULD configurations at a moment’s notice.

ICELANDAIR GROUP has seen its yearly profits increase by 67 per cent to $111.2 million in 2015, helped by a number of factors including strong cargo results.

The group was helped by large falls in aircraft fuel and leasing costs. Its fuel costs fell by 16 per cent to $229.3 million and leasing was down by 14 per cent to $22.9 mil-lion. It made a profit of $300,000 in the fourth quarter, the first time this period has registered a positive result.

Icelandair Group president and chief executive officer, Björgólfur Jóhannsson says cargo results were good: “A number of interacting factors contributed to the strong per-formance, including falling fuel prices, increased demand in the North Atlantic market – which was met by increased ca-pacity – and good results from charter and cargo operations.”

In 2015, freight tonne kilometres (FTK) rose three per cent to 100.5 million and capacity in available tonne kilometres (ATK) increased by 13 per cent to 242.2 million. In January 2016, FTK increased by 11 per cent to 8.6 million and ATK was up by 15 per cent to 17.3 million.

Cargo boosts Icelandair figures

NEWSWEEK

aircargoweek.com 3ACW 15 FEBRUARY 2016

A ir Cargo Week’s (ACW) website con-tinues to go from strength to strength and in January the number of page views it gained soared once more.

From 1-31 January there was an average of 1,400 page views a day, which is a far cry from when aircargoweek.com was revamped in July last year. In August and September, the website was getting around 400 views a day.

The recently launched ACW newsletter also continues to garner subscribers from all cor-ners of the freight supply chain and is now sent out to more than 9,000 people across the globe.

ACW’s social media coverage has also grown and it now has 2,877 followers on Twitter, a rise of 1000 followers in six months while both the Facebook and LinkedIn company pages con-tinue to gain more followers.

ACW is part of AZura International, which also runs azfreight.com, a directory featuring thousands of airfreight operators from across the freight supply chain. The website been

modernised and firms can now take up the chance to be a ‘Featured Company’.

Over the last 12 months azfreight.com has racked up 598,228 users who spent on aver-age six minutes 15 seconds per visit viewing 7.17 pages per session in 1,007,648 sessions (source: Google Analytics).

AZura International is also running the glit-tering Air Cargo Week World Air Cargo Awards

2016 at the Kerry Hotel in Shanghai (China) on Wednesday 15 June. The awards are a celebra-tion of industry excellence and are presented in nine categories ranging from Airfreight For-warder of the Year to Cargo Airline of the Year. Voting is open and runs until 29 April.

Brussels Airport, Saudia Cargo, Etihad Cargo, Air Asia, and WebCargoNet have already signed up for the various sponsorship deals on offer, but there are still some up for grabs.

Visit aircargoweek.com for more information and contact sales@azurainternational.com for any advertising opportunities.

ACW’s digital platforms reaching new heights

AIR TRANSPORT SERVICES GROUP (ATSG) says due to better-than-expected results from its airline operations in the fourth quarter (Q4), its financial results for 2015 are likely to exceed management’s earlier guidance.

The aircraft lessor says earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) will likely be in a range of $196-200 million for 2015. EBITDA from con-tinuing operations for 2014 was $179.5 million. Audited results are expected in March.

ATSG says the change in the 2015 outlook reflects in-creased demand for ATSG’s services, primarily for the 767 freighters it operates on a contracted ACMI (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance) basis. The company says Q4 benefited from more Boeing 767 Freighters were dry-leased to external customers at year-end.

ATSG president and chief executive officer, Joe Hete says: “We faced extraordinary challenges in 2015 to quick-ly place and operate our 767 freighters over new routes and in concert with new ground services, while continuing to provide great service to all of our other customers.”Hete adds the trial ACMI express network its airlines launched in September for a US customer performed well through the holiday season, and continues to operate.

WorldNewsCEVA Logistics has appointed Fuat Adoran to lead its Balkan, Middle East and Africa cluster, promoting him from managing director of CEVA Turkey.Adoran will continue to be based in Istanbul and will now be responsible for 4,500 staff across nine countries. One of Adoran’s primary goals will be to share the knowledge and expertise developed there to create solutions for customers in other countries within his cluster.

Dacotrans Sweden AB has merged with GH Transport AB and Key Logistics AB, creating a medium-sized freight forwarding and logistics business. The three merged firms will trade as Key Logistics AB, which will remain the FPS Network Agent for Sweden. Chief exec-utive officer is Stefan Hansson.

DSV’s air division flying high

DANISH freight forwarder DSV says airfreight “reached new heights” in 2015 as profit and revenue increased.

The figures come hot on the heels of the firm being given approval last month for its takeover of UTi Worldwide.

DSV reports net revenue was 50.8 billion Danish krone ($7.6 billion), up 4.7 per cent and gross profit was 11.2 billion krone, up 8.8 per cent.

The company says the Air and Sea Division took the lead by reporting airfreight growth well “above the market aver-age”. It explains the airfreight results were a key contributor to the division’s organic growth of 13 per cent.

In 2016, DSV says it expects operating profit before spe-cial items is expected to be in the range of 3.1 - 3.5 billion krone and net financial expenses to be 450 million krone.

2015 results boost for ATSG

NEWSWEEK

4 ACW 15 february 2016

FREIGHT traffic in Europe grew by just 0.7 per cent in 2015 compared to much stronger pas-senger growth of 5.2 per cent, according to Airports Council International (ACI) Europe.

Among Europe’s top five freight hubs, only Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport was up on 2015, rising 3.1 per cent to 748,914 tonnes. Frankfurt Airport (pictured) remained Europe’s top freight hub, but volumes fell by 2.8 per cent to just under two million tonnes.

Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport dropped by 1.4 per cent to 1.8 million tonnes and Am-sterdam Airport Schiphol dipped by 0.7 per cent to 1.6 million tonnes. Among the top airports to decline, Heathrow Airport saw the smallest fall, down 0.2 per cent to just under 1.5 million tonnes.

ACI Europe director general, Olivier Jank-ovec says the outlook for 2016 is mixed. “The positive momentum created by improving economic conditions in the Eurozone, low oil prices and loose monetary policy is likely to persist for most of 2016.

“However, downside risks abound, and they mainly of a geopolitical nature – both homegrown and external. These range from the unprecedented migrant crisis and its re-percussions on Schengen to the UK Brexit, heightened terrorist threats, instability in the Middle East and North Africa and deteriorat-ing prospects in emerging markets.”

In December, the results were not as bad. Paris was the busiest freight hub in Decem-ber, handling 165,434 tonnes, up 0.7 per cent. Frankfurt was second busiest in Decem-ber, dipping 1.3 per cent to 162,693 tonnes.

Amsterdam was up by 1.1 per cent to 135,328 tonnes and Heathrow saw a small increase of 0.8 per cent to 127,152 tonnes. Cologne Bonn Airport was fifth busiest in De-cember, with freight increasing by 10.5 per cent to 69,950 tonnes.

2016 is set to be a challenging year for Eu-rope’s cargo hubs.

However, the German Airports Association (ADV) forecasts tonage will grow 1.7 per cent in Germany.

Europe’s air cargo powerhouse – saw cargo volumes decline 0.1 per cent in 2015, ADV reports, and gateways across Germany han-dled a total of 4,438,589 tonnes.

ADV’s head of transport policy and trans-port economics, Markus Engemann says: “The Airports Association expects the cargo area remains volatile. The calculations of the ADV have nevertheless indicates a cargo growth of plus 1.7 per cent in 2016.

“An even higher growth is prevented by external risk factors. These include the de-cline of trade with China and the emerging markets as well as wars and unrest in the Middle East.”

Oman Airports says cargo volumes at Muscat International Airport posted growth of 10 per cent in 2015, as ton-nage reached 134,500 tonnes, a rise on

the 122,189 tonnes in 2014.The airport operator was driven by Oman Air

and Cargolux signing a joint venture agreement

last year, as they look to develop Muscat as a consolidation centre and a transit hub for ship-ments. By end of 2015, Cargolux was already operating a second weekly frequency to Chen-nai with a Boeing 747 Freighter.

The airport benefitted from Oman Air’s rapid growth, while Qatar Airways, FlyDubai, Emir-ates, Air India and Turkish Airlines grew last year as well.

Additionally, Salalah International Airport has also shown improvement in freight volumes growing by 27 per cent, handling 1,583 tonnes, up on the 1,231 tonnes in 2014.

Oman Airports says Salalah has a favourable geographic position and is expected that air-freight growth will continue in the future by linking Africa and Europe.

Positive signs for Air France KLM

AIR FRANCE KLM has seen revenue tonne kilometres (RTK) fall by 6.4 per cent to 667 million in January, but load factor rose.

Though RTK fell by 6.4 per cent, capaci-ty measured in available tonne kilometres (ATK) dropped by a larger amount, by 6.8 per cent to 1.1 billion. This meant the load factor was 0.2 percentage points higher than January 2015, up to 56.8 per cent.

The load factor improvements came from KLM, which saw an increase of 1.3 percent-age points to 64.4 per cent. KLM saw RTK fall by 6.7 per cent to 395 million, and ATK drop by 8.5 per cent to 614 million.

Air France struggled with RTK falling by 6.1 per cent to 272 million, and ATK down 4.9 per cent to 560 million. Air France’s load factor dipped by 0.6 percentage points to 48.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, Finnair Cargo has seen vol-umes increase by 14.9 per cent to 10,742 tonnes in January, putting its volumes near where it was in the same month of 2014.

Asian tonnage rose the most, 16 per cent to 6,758 tonnes. European cargo was up 12.4 per cent to 1,764 tonnes. The load factor in January was up 6.8 percentage points to 53.8 per cent.

Oman on the up as volumes increase

Mixed outlook in 2016 for Europe

aircargoweek.com

ACW 15 february 2016 6

L yon-Saint Exupery Airport (pictured) handled a record breaking 48,812 tonnes in 2015, helped by Emirates SkyCargo services to Dubai and large charter flights, cargo manager, Eric Bur-

din (pictured) tells Air Cargo Week.Burdin says express is still the dominant

business area for Lyon, accounting for 38,826 t o n n e s in 2015, with freight increasing by

11.3 per cent to 6,109 tonnes. He expects volumes to

increase by five per cent in 2016.

“We saw an increase in charter flights and a dominance of express freight, which totalled

38,826 tonnes.”“The market share of

cargo freight increased by

6,109 tonnes (11.3 per cent), thanks to the regu-lar weekly routes of Emirates SkyCargo to Dubai.”

“There were also many heavy charter flights carried out with the AN 124 and the Boeing 747-8.”

For 2016, Lyon will be refurbishing freight parking to accommodate express units and Boeing 757-200s and Boeing 767-300s simultaneously.

Burdin says: “We also plan to optimise parking spaces for wide-bodied aircraft, so that AN124 models can be accommodated, as well as others, including 747-8 models. This development of the parking facilities is part of the ‘Golden Mile’ project, which will be the flagship project for Car-goPort [Lyon’s freight department].”

“The establishment of a new 48,000 square metre area will also allow direct contact with the cargo plane parking area, as well as better effi-cacy of cargo handling in 2017.”

Burdin says the main imports and exports Lyon handles include regional industrial freight, which is often hi-tech, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, industrial fabrics, electronics, Beaujolais wine, food products and horses.

He says most of Lyon’s business is with Asia, the USA and Brazil.

“Over the past year, CargoPort have proven their capacity to handle cargo flights, which transport horses. Since 2013, almost 1,000 horses have been transported by Lyon Airport.”

“Lyon Airport is working to obtain the Euro-

pean Commission’s additional approval, which is necessary for the creation of a PIF specific to the equestrian industry. This was great news for us, and also made Lyon Airport the first agreed site for this in the South of France.”

He sees Lyon having great opportunities and adds: “New equipment also allows the car-riage of mixed-cargo, which was not as readily available in the past. For example, the Emirates route to Dubai, which has been active since 2014, or the Air Canada route to Montreal, which will be available in June 2016.”

Dubai and large charters help break records at LyonFRANCE

Volumes at marseille Provence Airport (pic-tured) remained the same in 2015 but cargo manager, Jean-Marc Boutigny is expecting strong growth for 2016, helped by increased services to North Africa.

Boutigny tells Air Cargo Week that in 2015, airfreight fell two per cent to 52,000 tonnes, mail remained the same at 3,900 tonnes and road feeder service increased by four per cent to 20,000 tonnes. For 2016, he is expecting seven per cent growth due to increasing ex-press traffic to Algeria and Tunisia.

Boutigny says: “Marseille Provence is the Western Mediterranean cargo hub and we are actually developing our network adding a new cargo route [Marseille – Algiers – Marseille] four days a week thanks to DHL.”

“[We are] benefitting [from] bigger daily air-freight capacities to link Brittany to Provence thanks to Asl Airlines France and French Post.”

In January, DHl express inaugurated its new eight million euro ($8.9 million) hub with 3,000 square metres of warehouse space, 300 square metres of office space and 4,200 square metres of outdoor space. The new DHL facility has triple the capacity of the old one, capable of handling up to 5,500 pieces per hour.

When DHL opened the facility, it said be-tween 2014 and 2015, the number of pieces handled for import and export increased by 20 per cent, mainly due to growing traffic to Tuni-sia and Malta.

At the time, DHL Express France chief exec-utive officer, Michel Akavi said: “Our Marseille hub plays a crucial role in our exchanges with North Africa.

“By increasing both human and material resources to handle this traffic, we are re-sponding to the growth in volume and providing additional quality of service to our customers.”

aircargoweek.com

Marseille expects North African growth

A ir France says it is facing strong competition with excess capacity and falling yields, but it is confident of maintaining market share.

The airline, which makes up part of the Air France KLM Martinair (AF-KL-MP) Cargo group tells Air

Cargo Week (ACW): “Altogether market was quite stable in weight, but yield followed a downward trend and worldwide overcapac-ity has continued to increase. It is the same picture for AF-KL-MP Cargo on the French market, with also an impact, for us, due to capacity decreases on several destinations.”

The airline group has been cutting its freighter fleet, includ-ing removing two Boeing 747 Freighters from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. It will also have four Boeing 747-400 Freighters at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

The group’s Boeing MD-11 Freighters are being phased out this year but it is adding bellyhold capacity with Boeing 777-300ERs. When announcing its 2015 results, AF-KL-MP said freighter capac-ity was reduced by 29 per cent compared to December 2014.

Air France tells ACW: “We have stabilised our AF Cargo full freighter fleet in 2015 and we are adjusting our KL-MP Cargo full freighter fleet in 2016, especially to/from Asia. In parallel

our belly capacity continues to grow [with 777-300ERs] so basi-cally we will consolidate our business with our customers in 2016.”

For 2016, Air France says: “We are still facing a very compet-itive market with a lot of capacity, yield should continue to be impacted, but AF-KL should, all in all, be able to maintain its mar-

ket share.”For 2016, Air France says it wants to consolidate perishables

products and develop pharma and express. “Our main identified flows are express, fresh (perishables) and pharma. The target is to consolidate the fresh and develop pharma and express thanks to our state-of-the-art express hub in Charles de Gaulle.”

Air France confident of maintaining market share

7ACW 15 FEBRUARY 2016

FRANCE

The operator of Paris Charles de Gaulle Air-port and Paris Orly Airport, Aeroports de Paris (ADP) is looking forward to 2016, when it will jointly host The Internation-al Air Cargo Association’s (TIACA) Air Cargo Forum (ACF).

ADP chief airport operations managing director, Franck Goldnadel tells Air Cargo

Week that 2015 was a successful year, with a 1.1 per cent increase in volumes across both airports to 2.1 million tonnes. ADP also welcomed Emirates SkyCargo, Sau-dia Cargo and China Eastern Cargo as new customers, and AirBridgeCargo Airlines introduced a fourth weekly service.

Goldnadel says the airport operator is looking forward to co-hosting the TIACA ACF with Air France Cargo in October as a marketing opportunity for the French airfreight market. “The ACF 2016 also marks the common goal to gain visibility in the world of cargo for ADP and Air France Cargo.”

he continues: “ACF 2016 is an important step but it is above all a major corner stone to develop our cargo strategy for the future. We have great ambitions for 2016 of course, but also for the years to come.”

Apart from co-hosting the prestigious ACF, ADP has expan-sion plans at Charles de Gaulle. Goldnadel says: “We expect more to offer in 2016, especially regarding involvement in digitalisation process and even more improvement of trace-ability, geolocation and video protection and above all safety on [the] ground but it is too early to give more details.”

The operator is also working with French public authorities to improve pharmaceutical transportation. It is studying the possibility of developing dedicated infrastructure for perish-able goods, including pharmaceuticals and live animals, to increase French exports of these goods.

“The goal is to develop pharma-handling and pharma certi-fication at Charles de Gaulle in order to increase air cargo’s pharma market share.”

Aeroports de Paris has an annual capacity of 3.6 million tonnes, of which 3.5 million are at Charles de Gaulle. The cargo area at Charles de Gaulle covers 300 hectares and has 500,000 square metres of buildings across two large zones. Goldnadel says: “Together they have access to 80 aircraft parking positions. The airport has a catchment area of 25 mil-lion people within a 200 kilometre radius and some 100,000 companies.”

Bollore Logistics has made Charles de Gaulle its new hub. Goldnadel says: “Bollore Logistics operational restructuring, and launch of a new facility located at the airport with di-rect ramp access at Charles de Gaulle, strengthens Paris as a leading import hub for europe bound freight.”

he says Bollore has set a limit of eight hours for retrieving containers, breaking contents out in the new facility and get-ting goods moving to final destinations from when unit load devices arrive. The 37,500 square metre complex features a secure warehouse, two 500 square metre charging rooms with a fleet of 100 forklifts, 850 employees and a capacity to load 800 trucks per day.

ACF marketing opportunity

ACW 15 february 2016 8

Consolidated Aviation Services (CAS) is seeing an immediate return on the $2.5 million investment to expand its perishables handling centre at Miami International Airport after through-

put climbed to 70,000 tonnes in the first nine months of 2015, a 400 per cent increase on its previous volumes.

CAS, the largest cargo handler in the US, more

than doubled the size of the facility the previous year with the addition of a 18,000 square foot cooler alongside its existing 12,000 square foot perishables building, which opened in 2009.

The investment increased the building’s capacity to handle up to 90 unit load devices at one time, added 16-foot wide airside doors to expedite shipment handling and introduced a refrigerated dock to handle trucks within a tem-

perature-controlled environment. A new agriculture inspection facility and

walk-in freezer also formed part of the latest expansion as well as multiple cool chambers for fish, flowers and produce that need to be main-tained in specific temperature conditions.

CAS senior vice-president for sales and mar-keting, Ray Jetha explains: “Miami is a major airport for CAS and one where we have been investing for a number of years to keep pace with the growth of our longstanding customers as well as new airlines that recognise Miami’s strong position in the US market and as a gate-way to Latin America.

“The improvements to our perishables handling centre have helped us manage the increased demand for our services and we will invest again in the future when we see the need to do so to support our customers and maintain our strong position in the region.”

Miami is the perishables gateway to and from the US, handling 85 per cent of all perishables air imports into the country and 80 per cent of air exports, adding up to over 720,000 tonnes of fresh fish, vegetables, fruits and flowers per

annum for the US consumer market as well as for customers in Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Its perishables handling capability at the air-port also includes a Cool Time Arrivals (CTA) service for the specialist handling of fresh fish and other commodities requiring bespoke environments on their journey to markets or distributors. It also provides dedicated perish-able handling services for American Airlines and IAG Cargo (pictured).

The new cooler handles a wide variety of cargo, including fresh cut flowers from Colombia and Ecuador, fresh salmon and trout from Chile, asparagus from Peru and other fruits and veg-etables from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Jetha adds: “We see massive potential in South America, where we already have a pres-ence in Brazil and Ecuador and are continuing to explore new opportunities there.”

Fresh making the difference for CAS in MiamiPERISHABLES

Perishables gateway

CHANGING demographics and growing in-comes across the Asia Pacific region have stimulated demand for high quality per-ishables growing year-on-year for Hong Kong-based Cathay Pacific Cargo (CPC).

During 2015, it recorded increased per-ishable volumes moving from the Americas, Europe, Australasia and Japan into the re-gion, and China in particular. Goods ranged from fresh fruit and vegetables to live sea-food and chilled meat.

CPC general manager for cargo sales and marketing, Mark Sutch (pictured) says ex-

pectations for 2016 are that air movement

of perishables into the region will continue to grow despite u n c e r t a i n t i e s with the Chinese

economy.“One of our big-

gest challenges is to provide a smooth cold chain process to keep perishables fresh throughout the air journey so as to maxi-mise their shelf life,” he explains.

“The strength of perishable movements depends on a number of factors, the weath-er being a major factor, as it affects both quality and quantity of perishable produc-es. Other factors include purchasing power amongst countries, currency fluctuations and government policies.”

The next three to four years will see a phased implementation of a free trade agreement between Australia and China and Sutch describes this as a “major cat-alyst” to expand perishable movements between the two countries.

He tells Air Cargo Week that CPC would continue to strengthen its perishable handling capabilities and would tailor cus-tomised logistic solutions to meet the specific requests and demands of custom-ers between the continents.

High quality perishables in demand

aircargoweek.com

A merican Airlines Cargo (AAC) turned diverse weather and currency fluctuations over the course of 2015 - which posed significant challenges for the perishables business - into an opportunity to focus on the strong Latin America (LATAM) market.

“Perishable movement within the USA, specifically domestic demand, was stronger for 2015 than we’ve seen in recent years,” says the carrier’s managing director for cargo sales West, Joe Goode. “Our most commonly transported perishable commodi-ties last year were blueberries, asparagus and fresh flowers.”

Goode tells Air Cargo Week (ACW) that customers are optimis-tic for 2016 and AAC intends to ensure its perishables business continues growing. “For this year, we already have plans to invest in a variety of cooler facilities at some of our hubs,” he says.

“We think the year-over-year impact of our second Los Angeles to London Heathrow route will generate significant tonnage. It makes use of our most cargo-friendly aircraft, the Boeing 777-300, and not only allows for business terminating in London but for trucking business into mainland Europe and for interline air transfers to the Middle East, which is a growth market for us.”

AAC has added a service between Los Angeles and Sydney

(Australia), a daily route which also uses a 777-300 and expands the network to the South Pacific, allowing connections to over 215 other locations in LATAM.

“Although this is a new opportunity for us and we’re still working to understand the logistics on both ends, as headwinds subside and payloads increase, we should see a strong seasonal perishable demand in everything from chilled meat to fruits and vegetables,” says Goode.

“We are also seeing strong advance bookings for seasonable per-ishables, including a lot of fresh fish, for the new service between Los Angeles and Haneda, Tokyo, which started 11 February.”

Goode says the vagaries of the weather will always be a factor for perishables and is “something we have to work around” but a key challenge is to understand the needs and abilities of foreign markets.:“What perishable commodities are in demand and how can we offer the highest quality product and service, even when there’s an opportunity for regions to source elsewhere? This is an evolving market and top markets like Europe and Asia who have a high demand for high-quality commodities out of the US.”

Goode anticipates perishables will outpace hard freight growth over the next couple years. “There is tremendous global growth potential, particularly into Asia,” he says. “Currently, from the West Coast, the most commonly exported commodity to Asian regions is fresh fish which requires closely monitored tempera-ture control throughout the whole shipping process.

“As the emerging middle class in China is exposed to products at more reasonable prices, there will be a strong demand. These types of sensitive shipments are what require the most handling and attention as the market continues to grow and evolve.”

Perishables forecast to outpace hard freight growth

9ACW 15 february 2016

PERISHABLES

Nigeria needs upgrades for produce A higher standard of cargo airports in Nigeria would drastical-ly reduce loss of revenue from Nigerian agricultural produce, according to governor of Kwara State, Abdulfatah Ahmed.

“Our farmers are producing large quantities of perishable products but there is no means of transporting them quickly to international markets where demands are high,” he told delegates at the National Airfreight Summit in February.

“If cargo airports were established in the hinterlands of the country, it would reduce waste in the sector and that would improve the individual’s and country’s foreign ex-change earnings,” Ahmed said.

The governor stated airfreight could be an important cat-alyst in the diversification of the nation’s economy through expansion of Nigeria’s non-oil export market to earn greater revenue for the government. He said an efficient, flexible and dynamic airfreight system would promote growth of the nation’s economy and improve global competitiveness.Ahmed stressed the need to encourage airfreight activities to support farmers in the country and make more farm pro-duce to meet demands of the international market.

AIR FRANCE-KLM-MARTINAIR CARGO (AFKLMP) says Am-sterdam Airport Schiphol (pictured) is the “logistic hotspot” of the high-end global flower trade for exporters in Colom-bia, Ecuador and Kenya.

The carrier says: “Given the strategic position of Schiphol, we are one of the main capacity providers to the worldwide floriculture industry, with a steady market share of round about 50 per cent. Our freighters carry between 80 and 100 tonnes of flowers and we re-export via Schiphol to various European destinations, Russia, China and North America.

“The product is very sensitive to temperature deviations and customers are increasingly demanding more elaborate and stringent cool chain requirements. We have to fac-tor in inherent process variations due to different aircraft, product varieties and origins. This is compounded with in-creasing demand from the industry for standardisation of quality, meaning variability needs to be minimised as far as possible.”AFKLMP is assessing the outcome of experiments with tem-perature control elements throughout its supply chain. Trials have been carried out on routes from South Africa and Latin America in cooperation with forwarders and shippers, to-gether with a cool chain consultancy firm.

Schiphol the flowers hotspot

aircargoweek.com

ACW 15 february 2016 10

Business in New York is booming for American Airlines Cargo (AAC) but the lack of available slots hinders cargo growth, according to managing director for cargo sales in the East,

Linda Dreffein (pictured).Despite being slot controlled, Dreffein tells

Air Cargo Week the carrier still offers a variety of widebody routes from John F. Kennedy (JFK) International Airport and LaGuardia Airport (LGA): “We have such a high demand, cargo

wise, we could do with more available slots to transport more cargo each day, but having a lot of great business is a good problem to have.

“From LGA, where a large portion of our ship-ments include seafood, flowers and produce, we have increased domestic capacity to nine US locations, including major international hubs, such as Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth and Miami.”

Dreffein says the New York area is highly com-petitive for freight and it has seen volatility in the market: “In spite of the ups and downs there is extensive business out there. With our strong network, widebody capacity and new fuel-ef-ficient fleet, we are confident in our ability to grow our business in New York this year.”

She notes AAC is seen growing demand for temperature-controlled traffic, but is also seeing a strong demand for high-value commodities and perishables, especially seafood.

Major trade lanes are JFK to Heathrow Air-

port. From the London hub this includes Paris, Sao Paulo, and Buenos Aires to Rio de Janeiro, while the transcontinental service to and from Los Angeles and San Francisco is strong.

Dreffein says the Airbus A321 has proven quite popular “below the wing,” while it is utilising JFK as an important tran-sit market to international locations around the world, such as the Carib-bean through Miami. AAC is also upgrading aircraft on some routes, which will benefit cargo customers.

The carrier has also improved its JFK operations with a new CRT (controlled room temperature) facility in the warehouse, allowing more phar-maceutical products at temperatures between 15-25 degrees Celsius and added new bobtail tractors and forklifts to more efficiently handle shipments, pleasing employees.

Dreffein also observes: “Our Philadel-phia (PHL) pharmaceutical facility has been a significant boost to AA and more impor-tantly our customers, not only in PHL and New York, but to and from all the cities served by the

hub.”AAC built it because of rising demand in and out of New York for perishables and cold-chain cargo. At JFK, it now has a cooler facility maintaining freight at five degrees Celsius, for shipments of fish, pro-

duce, and flowers.“Overall, for us in cargo, it’s

about investing in the discovery of more efficient processes. We need to find

ways to streamline practices industry-wide and develop procedures that will simplify the shipping process for our customers,” Dreffein adds.

Lack of slots holding back American in the Big AppleCARGO GATEWAY NEW YORK

NEW YORK’S JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNA-TIONAL AIRPORT is the latest gateway for another Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) contract win after struck its first ever agree-ment with Japan Airlines (pictured below).

WFS, which provides ground handling ser-vices to more than 300 airlines across its global network, has been awarded a cargo handling contract by the carrier.

The handler will manage Japan Airlines’ twice-daily Boeing 777 and 787 services to Tokyo. WFS says it expect to handle more than 15 million kilogrammes of cargo a year for the airline.

WFS vice president for ground handling and cargo in the US East Region and Can-ada, Sydney Stephenson explains: “This is a milestone contract for WFS to be working with another of the world’s most respected airlines.

“This contract follows our move into cargo building 75 at JFK International Air-port, which helped to demonstrate to Japan Airlines our commitment to consistent im-provement and service quality. We hope this will be the first of many more contracts be-tween the airline and WFS in the future.”

In other news at JFK International, Ethio-

pian Airlines says it plans to launch a three weekly Addis Ababa-Lomé (Togo) to JFK bel-lyhold service by the end of June.

The African carrier suspended flights to New York’s Newark International Airport in 2004 to start a non-stop service from Washington Dulles International Airport to Addis Ababa.

Flights to New York will make an inter-mediate stop in Lomé, the home base for Ethiopian Airline’s partner ASKY Airlines, in both directions. The carrier will operate a Boeing 787 on the route.

Ethiopian already operates services to Washington Dulles, Toronto and Los Angeles in North America.

And commencing 15 February, American Airlines Cargo will move more cargo to Bermuda as it will start operating a second bellyhold service between Bermuda and JFK.

The flight will operate every day except Tuesdays through until 3 March when it be-comes a daily service.

aircargoweek.com

JFK win for WFS,and carriers add routes

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