Up to now, Cargolux had contracted about 30 different trucking companies for distributing the carrier’s goods throughout Europe. That’s over. From now on, it will be only a selected
number of road feeder service providers that the airline intends to cooperate with. A major beneficiary of this strategic u-turn is Luxembourg’s RFS capacity provider Wallenborn Transport
S.A.
That’s an amazing figure Kevin Nash delivers, Cargolux’s Senior VP Logistics: in 2014, vehicles of trucking companies servicing 115 scheduled destinations network wide made around 52,000 journeys
across Europe for distributing air freight shipments on behalf of his airline, having completed a total distance of 33 million kilometers. In comparison, this resembles 43 trips to the Moon and
back.
CV’s sales volumes have grown significantly
And it can be expected that in future the trucking distance covered will go even beyond Venus, our most Earth-like neighbor in orbit (42 mn km at nearest distance) since Cargolux expands its
global business constantly by serving new destinations and keeps on establishing a multiple hub system in key market places like Milan or Zhengzhou. “Up to date we increased our sales volume in
2015 by 8 percent,” states Manager Nash. At the end it might be even more with the peak season still coming!
Driven by the aim to further improve costs, enhance the service quality and to have permanent access to sufficient and only environmentally efficient transport capacity Cargolux decided some
months ago under Kevin’s responsibility to streamline its road feeder strategy by switching from mass to class, i.e. cooperating with only a limited number of selected trucking companies instead
of 30 different actors.
Wallenborn wins the race
One of the biggest beneficiaries of this move seems to be Wallenborn Transport which won two main parts of the tendered volumes and is expected to triple their revenue generated with Cargolux
within a year. So far Wallenborn was linking only the Nordic countries with Cargolux’s gateway Luxembourg Findel Airport through their subsidiary Haugsted, with no other trade lanes covered by
Wallenborn for Cargolux. This all changes now, explains Kevin: “They were awarded both our UK and Italy traffic for a contractual term of 2 years.”
Services to and from the UK, mainly Heathrow Airport but also Manchester, commence officially October 1, after a transition period that has begun already. Next to come is the Italy link, starting
1 January 2016.
UK is a key market for CV
Particularly traffic across the channel between Luxembourg and the UK is of high importance for Cargolux where large volumes of goods are moved mainly between the carrier's home base Findel
airport and London Heathrow. Similarly in Northern Italy, where road feeder service to and from Milan Malpensa are an indispensable part of Cargolux Italia's business, Luxembourg flag carrier's
local offspring.
Mr Nash says that Wallenborn was picked as RFS partner because they are meeting important criteria: their convincing modern fleet mix consisting of Euro V and VI type vehicles enabling many
transport options and - “for us at Cargolux of utmost importance,” (Nash) - complying with ambitious emission standards set by Brussels, sufficient capacity offered specifically on the UK routes,
fast turnaround times at the airports served by them and last but not least their wealth of experience and the trucking company’s up-to-date IT system guaranteeing excellent connectivity with
Cargolux. “This enhances our services to the benefit of our clients and saves costs at the end of the day,” summarizes Kevin Nash the visual results of his strategic move to streamline Cargolux’s
road feeder activities.
Heiner Siegmund / Michael Taweel
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