SHORT SHOTS

IN BRIEF - THE LATEST AIR CARGO INDUSTRY NEWS.

DHL to expand in CPH
In order to improve their express services in Denmark, DHL Express announced that they will erect a new cargo terminal at Copenhagen Airport.
The facility which is planned to handle around 37,000 shipments per hour will be housed in a 26,000 square metre building and will have a 24 hour operation. DHL Express’s new set-up will be housed at the large site located on the eastern freight site at the airport, which will also include a new Airport Business Park in the near future. The new facility will have state-of-the-art systems and will also offer direct trucking services throughout Europe and long-haul international connections to Africa, the Middle East and the Americas. It is planned to be in operation as of 2023.

Budapest Airport cargo grows double-digit in 2018
Budapest Airport continues on its path of expanding their cargo operations and the results for 2018 have given the management all the more reason to concentrate on air cargo as a strong revenue bringer.
Last year the airport handled a total of 146,113 tons of cargo. This is an almost 15% growth over the previous year. Cargo volumes at BUD have increased by just under 60% between 2016 and 2018 and the management expect a further growth during the current year.
Rene Droese, Director Property and Cargo at BUD stated that: “we are focusing all our efforts to make good use of the ideal conditions in Budapest and turn Liszt Ferenc International Airport into a major cargo logistics hub for the Central-Eastern European region.”
Work continues on the new freight centre named Cargo City. This 20,000 square metre facility is costing EUR 32,6 million and once finished will enable BUD to handle up to 250,000 tons per annum. There is also a new building being set up to house forwarders and this will have a size of 10,000 square metres.
Already in 2017, integrators serving Budapest Airport moved into a new 16,000 square metre large facility and in order to be better prepared for handling cargo aircraft, the apron size is being expanded by a further 32,000 square metres in order to accommodate a further two B747-8 freighters.
Mr Droese went on to say that: “our goal is to deliver by the end of this year, an ideal cargo infrastructure for all segments of our well balanced customer portfolio for full freighters, belly cargo, integrators and road feeder trucking too.”
In the meantime, various carriers such as Cargolux, Silk Way West and AirBridgeCargo Airlines serve BUD regularly using wide body freighters. The BUD cargo sales team has placed quite some emphasis during the past months on attracting carriers from the Far East by setting up workshops and sales programmes in various countries in the region.

Air Cargo Global gets two new contracts
The Slovakian-based carrier Air Cargo Global (ACG) seems to be bouncing back into business after having had a tough time during the past couple of years. They have have started a twice weekly B747-400F service from Oslo’s Avinor Airport to Tianjin Binhai Airport in China. The flights which will operate on Thursdays and Saturdays will mainly carry fresh Norwegian fish products on behalf of Fish Forever, a large trading company which is a specialist in the fresh fish import into the ever-demanding Chinese market. ACG states that once business picks up, that they will start a third weekly flight between OSL and TSN.
In other news it is rumored that ACG has also been able to sign an ACMI agreement with an unnamed carrier to operate for a short period into and out of Kenya’s Nairobi Airport.

CAL carries new spacecraft
CAL Cargo Airlines recently transported a special lunar spacecraft from Tel Aviv to Florida.
The craft which is named ‘Beresheet’ but is officially known as “SpaceIL” is the first orbital spacecraft to have been developed and built in the Middle East. The CAL B747-400ERF aircraft positioned to Florida’s Orlando Airport where the highly sensitive lunar module was transferred to the Kennedy Space Center. It is planned that it will be launched from there in mid-February and will take part in a two-month mission which will include a soft landing on the moon’s surface.