Party Night With VG Cargo at Hahn

The new state-of-the-art cargo handling terminal run by VG Cargo was officially christened during an impressive opening ceremony held in Hahn on the evening of 19 September. CargoForwarder Global was exclusively invited by the organizers to participate.

Guest of honor, Mrs Malu Dreyer, Prime Minister of Rhineland-Palatinate State opened the proceedings with a moving speech on the importance of Hahn as an airport for the region and her thanks to the owners of VG Cargo for investing further in the airport infrastructure.
It seems that she was particularly impressed with VG’s motto – “Together We Grow.”
She used this term in her speech to highlight the importance of how Hahn moves ahead particularly thanks to all concerned, be it airport management, the staff, regulatory bodies, or the state government officials.
Markus Bunk, Hahn’s CEO, in his speech also profusely thanked Nikolai Dinges, VG’s Managing Director, for the highly successful work and investment in the past years on the part of VG Cargo.

Half of the new warehouse extension was cordoned off and presented a party-like atmosphere for the more than 180 invited guests who celebrated the event throughout the whole evening. The brand new warehouse floor was covered with a dark blue carpet and round tables to seat guests for a tasty buffet dinner and to view an exciting acrobatic and magician show.

VG Cargo has been operating since 2002 in Hahn
They started with the handling of high value freight and the ground breaking ceremony for their first building was held in 2006. The facility became operational in 2007.
Since then things have moved pretty fast for VG.
The new extension now gives VG Cargo a total of 35,000 sqm of handling space along side 5,000 sqm of office space which is rented out to clients and official departments working at the airport.
Hahn has not had an easy time these past couple of years, but VG has insisted on following their plan to be the major player at the airport with regards to cargo handling.

Since Fraport quit the scene, there are two major players left.
VG Cargo and Hahn Cargo Services (HCS).
VG is by far the largest of the two, whereby HCS which has a total of 8,000 sqm of handling space, concentrates mainly on the handling of Silk Ways Airlines, who in turn are the major shareholder of HCS.
Despite being competitors, both outfits get on well and Robert Kurth, Manager of HCS commented as guest at the event, “we wish VG lots of good luck for their future development here at Hahn.”

Hahn turned over 150,000-plus tons of flown cargo during 2013, so by adding a further 15,000 sqm, VG is surely taking a (calculated) risk for the future.
By taking over the RFS cargo handling of Air France (see our other article in today’s edition) they have added a further 35,000 tons per annum to their load sheet.
However, a long way to go yet to fill the almost 380,000 tons of annual capacity on hand.