Hahn Welcomes Air China Cargo on Board

It was a major event for Hahn Airport. Finally, after months of preparation and negotiations, Air China Cargo operated its first official cargo flight from Hahn airport early this morning.

The Boeing 777F inaugural flight is the first three weekly operations through the airport situated in the Eifel area of southwest Germany.
After many months of negotiations between the Hahn Airport Sales Management, headed by Christoph Goetzmann, the flight took off on schedule early this morning bound for Shanghai’s Pudong Airport.

Successful start
This is indeed a good day for the Hahn cargo operation and the Air China Cargo operation can be seen as a so called “reference model carrier operation” for the airport.
If this operation continues as planned, then the airport management is positive that this will convince other long haul carriers which Hahn is in negotiation with, to start cargo operations also.

Long list of celebrities
The inaugural flight was attended by a high ranking delegation from the Chinese carrier’s management as well as from ministers of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and top managers of the airport.
Air China Cargo has chosen Hahn as its second cargo hub in Germany after many months of negotiations between the airport and ACC managers.
Christoph Goetzmann states that Hahn had to deliver a convincing concept to the Chinese carrier with regards to aircraft handling and direct on-forwarding of import cargo as well as speedy and efficient delivery and build up of export shipments.

Air China Cargo now has two German hubs
The Hahn operation is in addition to its daily all freighter and passenger  operations from Frankfurt’s Rhine-Main airport.
The operations through FRA are point to point flights to and from Shanghai and Beijing.
The HHN flights are part of a round-the-world service by Air China Cargo. The present three weekly flights originate in Shanghai (PVG) and one positions to Chicago (ORD) and then onto Hahn and back to Shanghai. The other two position through New York‘s Kennedy (JFK) airport.
Cargo is offloaded in Hahn and delivered directly to consignees in Europe and the flights are loaded in Hahn with China destined shipments.

Additional biz for VG Cargo
The Air China Cargo flights are handled by VG Cargo at Hahn which has just completed the addition of another 15,000 square meters of warehouse and office space at the airport.
The ample handling capacity would give the Chinese national carrier the opportunity of being able to extend the present three weekly flights into daily, if they so wished.
This is definitely the wish of the Hahn cargo management who however realize that it is their responsibility to prove to the carrier and future clients, that their concept for direct handling and on-forwarding of cargo through the airport is one which is just as good, if not better, than their competitor at Rhine-Main airport.
Time will tell. Please stay tuned.

John Mc Donagh / Heiner Siegmund