SHORT SHOTS

FRA  Cargo Handling goes more digital
The ‘Fair@Link’ Cargo Community System which was launched a year ago by Fraport and DAKOSY seems to be making progress.
The system which was developed by DAKOSY enables participating firms and govern-mental agencies to handle import and export air freight more efficiently.
Both Fraport and DAKOSY see a positive balance after completion of the first twelve months of FrankfurtAIR@Link operations at the airport.
Both claim that a relevant new number of customers has been added since its inaugura-tion in January of last year.
CEVA Logistics joined the system alongside the start-up companies, GEODIS, UTi Ger-many, Roehlig and cargo handler CHI.
A total of 40,000 air waybills were processed through the system in 2015.
DAKOSY claims that the handling agents benefit from FAIR@Link by reducing paper-work, which enables them in turn to assign staff over to loading and unloading process-es.
Fraport sees FAIR@Link as a good start for moving ahead with the aim of complete digi-talization at Europe’s largest cargo airport.

Silk Way and MASkargo sign Memorandum of Cooperation
At first glance, one would think that these are two unlikely partners.
However, Silk Way Airlines and MASkargo already have an existing block-space agree-ment but have now signed a new MOC, which will allow both carriers to access each oth-ers capacity throughout their respective global networks.
They see the MOC as a means of furthering collaboration on cargo space agreements, ground handling and line maintenance. MASkargo’s CEO, Mohd Yunus Idris sees this as allowing his airline a wider global presence within the CIS region.
MASkargo operates four A330-200Fs along with two B747-400F aircraft.
Silk Way Airlines’ cargo arm, Silk Way West Airlines, which is based in Baku operates a fleet of two B747-400Fs and three B747-8F aircraft.

Fraport increased Aviation Revenues by 5% in 2015
The operator of Germany’s largest airport saw a rise of almost five percent in revenues related to its aviation segment. A total of €927.3 million was generated, mainly due to pas-senger growth at the airport as well as satisfactory results in its External Activities & Ser-vices sector. However, despite the increase in revenue the EBITDA remained almost at the 2014 level, namely €237.5 million.
Ground Handling revenue increased by 2.6 percent to €673.1 million generating an EBITDA rise of 2.6 percent to €16.9 million.
Cargo figures suffered again under the weak global trade and tonnages went down by a further 2.6 percent to 2.1 million metric tons being handled at Frankfurt Airport.

ASL Aviation Group joins ERA
The European Regions Airline Association (ERA) has gained the ASL Aviation Group as their latest member.
ASL Aviation plus ASL Airlines France, ASL Airlines Hungary and ACLAS Technics join with ASL Airlines Ireland, ASL Airlines Switzerland as a new member.
Colin Grant, the Group CEO sees their membership positively and stated that “regional aviation in Europe needs the strong voice of ERA and as a Group we will assist in what-ever way we can to confront the issues that negatively impact our industry.”
ASL has a total of 1,800 staff from 46 nationalities and recently became one of Europe’s leading regional cargo and passenger airlines through its acquisition of other carriers and the takeover of TNT’s fleet.

AF-KLM, Alitalia and Delta Cargo join forces in Belgium, Germany and France
Effective 1. May the cargo offices of Air France-KLM, Delta and Alitalia in Brussels will work as a joint venture. The contract with the local Delta GSA, Air Logistics will then be terminated.
The joint venture will operate from the existing AF-KLM office at Brucargo’s building 701. Even within the joint venture, the respective AWB’s will be maintained.
As per 1. June the same set-up will be introduced in Germany. On the same date, France will follow suit, but there the Delta AWB will cease to exist. In Belgium, pharmaceutical products make up 40% of the AF-KLM revenue.
Hopes are high that the new sales set-up will steer some additional pharma to the Delta flights. Revenue-wise, the Belgian market is AF-KLM Cargo’s sixth largest worldwide, af-ter the Netherlands, France, Germany, the USA and China.

John Mc Donagh / Marcel Schoeters