Hahn Airport will Stick to its Hybrid Business Model

The airport in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate is driving to increase cargo and passenger traffic.
Lately, with ever increasing success.
Markus Bunk, in his interview with CargoForwarder Global highlighted some of the pros and cons of operating through Hahn Airport (HHN).

(Please also refer to our Video Interviews which can be seen on our website.)

The market believes in Hahn!
Markus states that Air China Cargo’s recent decision to commence services through HHN “clearly demonstrates the shipping industry’s trust in our location.” A further proof of this is the recent sea/air link initiated by the well known Dubai-based Sea/Air carrier SAT Albatros, with their twice weekly charter flights into HHN from Dubai operated with Emirates Boeing 777F aircraft.

And it does not seem to stop there!
Christoph Goetzmann, Hahn’s head of Sales & Marketing, informed us that discussions continue with potential new cargo operators into the airport.
Who they are or when they will start services is something the Hahn management is unable to reveal at the present time. One could however assume that the originating airport(s) would also be in the Far East.
Markus Bunk added to this that HHN’s main assets are utmost flexibility coupled with a 24/7/365 operation, excellent ground handling infrastructure and road access to and from the airport.

Rolling up sleeves
“With more than one handling agent on site, we are fully liberalized which is an important negotiation and selling point,” he adds.
He highly praised VG Cargo’s decision to further invest in the extension of their cargo facility which now offers a total of 35,000 sqm handling space.
“Now we (the airport) have to roll up our sleeves even further to acquire additional business in order to assist the handling agents to fill their facilities with more cargo shipments,” he stated.

Regular all freighter operations into and out of Hahn are now over 20 flights per week.
The HHN managers counted them out for us, whereby Silk Way Airlines has 8 rotations, Yangtze Express - 6, NCA - 4, Air China Cargo - 3. On top of this come the newly started sea/air charters mentioned above and thrice weekly operated 747-8 freighter flights by Atlas Air on behalf of agent Navitrans.

Air France moves to VG Cargo
CargoForwarder Global was exclusively informed at the event that Air France Cargo will as of 1. October this year, shift their complete cargo handling (Road Feeder Services) over to VG Cargo from the former Aviapartner premises at HHN.
According to VG’s Managing Director, Nikolai Dinges, this will add a further 35,000 tons per annum into his facility.

Passenger business treading water.
The airport CEO informed us that passenger figures have stagnated somewhat due to a temporary reduction in Ryanair’s frequencies, which was necessary in order to bring about a partial fleet redeployment until new aircraft they have ordered come on line.
He does not hesitate to add however, “that the increased Wizzair frequencies have partly supplemented the temporary loss of Ryanair passengers.”
He added “that also in future it is our aim to stick to the hybrid business model on both cargo and passenger cooperation.” “One does not work for us without the other,” is his closing statement.

Despite all the positive moves the expected passenger figures in 2014 will be slightly below last year’s level.
The cargo figures will most probably be on the level of those in 2013, but with an upward tendency since the summer of this year.

John Mc Donagh / Heiner Siegmund