The Transport Malta Civil Aviation Directorate (TM-CAD) has granted drone provider Dronamics the operational license. The permit is in full accordance with the EU legal drone framework and allows Dronamics to operate its “Black Swan” named Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) all across the block of 27 member states. Read more >>
Last Thursday (19MAY22), ground handling giant, Swissport, officially inaugurated its 8,000 m² air cargo center in Vienna, just a stone's throw away from the Austrian capital’s International Airport. With the opening of the state-of-the-art facility, the agent has massively expanded its footprint in Austria. Read more >>
The world’s tenth most prominent cargo drone operator, German company, Wingcopter, revealed this week that it has teamed up with Continental Drones Ltd, (a subsidiary of the Ghanaian/Dubai company, Atlantic Trust Holding) to give flight to a fleet of 12,000 Wingcopter 198s over the next 5 years: making this the world’s largest commercial drone deployment to date. Africa is poised to receive a comprehensive drone delivery network. Read more >>
And yet they are the ones carrying air cargo and the aviation world into the 21st century. At CargoFacts EMEA 2022 in Dubai, two panels in particular, discussed digitalization and demonstrated the clear gains that automation and digitalization bring. Three areas were explored: autonomous flights, digital aircraft checks, and air cargo booking platforms. Read more >>
The carrier, a subsidiary of logistics company, Sovereign Speed, is a specialist in the air transportation of time critical shipments across Europe. The airline's annual revenue has tripled from a mid-single-digit million-euro figure since Businesswings was taken over by Sovereign Speed in November 2019. And the synergies between the parent company and the carrier are far from exhausted, says Hendrik Bender, VP Group Sales, Business Development and Marketing, at Sovereign Speed. So, more is to come, he vaguely indicates, without revealing specifics. Read more >>
The Russian attack on Ukraine destroyed Antonov Airlines' home base, Kyiv Hostomel Airport, early on, along with five of the company's freighters, including the legendary AN-225 Mriya. However, five other AN-124 freighters were parked or operated outside the country at the time of the assault, and are fully operational. They have now found a new home base in Leipzig/Halle Airport - at least until Hostomel Airport is repaired following the end of Putin’s insane war. Read more >>
French shipping giant CMA CGM announced plans to take up to 9% of Air France-KLM’s ex post share capital. The transaction is to be financed by means of a capital increase of the airline. Once the deal is formally concluded, both players will jointly sell the cargo capacity of their respective freighter fleets. Their upcoming joint activities are based on a 10-year exclusive strategic commercial partnership to strengthen their air cargo activities.
Are the skies full of black swans or is there some kind of stability on the horizon? This was the general discussion thread throughout the CargoFacts EMEA conference in Dubai, 10-11MAY22, which took a whirlwind tour look at the future of air cargo, as well as the main learnings and developments resulting from the pandemic. Resilience, ecommerce, sustainability, were recurring buzzwords, along with views on the risk of overcapacity when and if the world returns to “normal”. Read more >>
“Things are not going back to the way they were […]. Sustainability and new equipment will shape the industry going forward,” was Regional Director Airline Market Analysis, Marketing & Business Development of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Tom Crabtree’s prediction at CargoFacts EMEA 2022. We are all in this together and for a shift towards greater sustainability, considerable investments need to be made before a level of demand is reached that brings supply to a more affordable and available level. Read more >>
The LATAM Group is still the undisputed number one in South American passenger and cargo traffic. However, a second alliance is setting out to stand up to it: Colombian carrier, Avianca, and Brazil’s Gol Linhas Aereas. They intend to unite under a common ownership structure bearing the name Grupo Abra, registered in the UK. Abra will also own but not control Colombian low-cost airline Viva Air. Just weeks ago, an intended merger between Brazilian Azul and Avianca failed to materialize. Read more >>
Italian newcomer, AlisCargo recently doubled its fleet, but almost no-one really became aware of this. In January, the Lombardy, northern Italy-based carrier added two B777s to its existing fleet of two Boeing Triple Seven passenger aircraft B-200ER which it obtained in mid-2021. Since then, widely unnoticed by the media and broad public, the startup has been conducting intercontinental flights on behalf of ITA Airways, and offering the market ACMI aircraft charter options to transport e-commerce packages stowed in passenger cabins. The fact that this service is only known to insiders is also due to the airline's reticent communication, to say the least. Read more >>
The aircraft conversion rallye is gaining additional momentum. The latest interested party standing in line to get slots for transforming passenger aircraft into freighters is Lithuanian carrier, SmartLynx Airlines. This involves four A321, which were acquired by Lynx’s business partner, APOC, from Finnair. Read more >>
