SHORT SHOTS

TIACA goes local – starting with AMS

TIACA is ready to go local and implement the Regional Symposium series it announced earlier in the year. The first one will take place in Amsterdam City Centre on 28-29JUN22, hosted by Amsterdam Airport Schiphol: a positive sign for the region, and an opportunity to meet CargoForwarder Global’s Marcel Schoeters, too, as he will be attending on our behalf. The first day offers interactive conference sessions and an evening reception, and the second day will feature a tour of Schiphol Airport.

The aim of the series is to set a focus and forum for the local air cargo community to come together to identify and discuss joint, regional issues, where TIACA can support and which it can “incorporate into our overall work on behalf of the industry.” TIACA’s focus points feature on the program: sustainability, market challenges, people issues, and economic outlook, alongside digitalization, and safety and security issues. The outcome of the Symposium will be a Regional Action plan “that will be incorporated into TIACA strategic objectives and activities.” The Regional Symposium is open to both TIACA members and non-members, and the attendance fees have been kept low so as to encourage as comprehensive a community representation as possible, “so that we can get a full understanding of the local needs for air cargo.”
 
Steven Polmans, Chairman TIACA, expanded: “TIACA is committed to being connected to our membership and by organizing the Regional Symposiums, we are able to interact more intimately with our members in each region and discuss what issues they face on a day-to-day basis. TIACA is greatly appreciative for the support of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol for inviting us to Amsterdam to launch the inaugural event. We look forward to excellent discussions and outcomes.”

Roos Bakker, Director Business Development Cargo at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, commented: “We are very honored to host the first TIACA Regional Event. As Europe's preferred Cargo Hub, we are more than delighted to welcome the community to Amsterdam for the kick-off event. It will be an interesting event full of new insights. We hope to see and meet many Air Cargo professionals.”

Saudia Cargo and Cainiao continue ecommerce success
The press release talks of a “thriving sky bridge” that the two companies have established between Asia and Europe, based on an e-commerce cooperation agreement signed last year. In MAR21, Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group, began its partnership with Saudia Cargo, on the Hong Kong SAR-Liege, Belgium route, transiting Saudia Cargo’s hub in Riyadh. Those 12 weekly freighter flights have proven to be a success, placing Riyadh and the Middle East on the ecommerce distribution network, greatly benefitting the airline’s ecommerce revenue growth, as Saudia Cargo’s Regional Director – Asia Pacific, Vikram Vohra, elaborated: “The agreement has allowed us to benefit from access to Alibaba’s e-commerce platform as online shopping continues to soar, boosted in part by the Covid-19 pandemic. The partnership with Cainiao, which offers logistic services to more than 200 countries, is central to our growth strategy for this decade and sets the template for future cooperation agreements. Cainiao has become a trusted and valued partner.”

Dandy Zhang, Commercial Director of Global Line Haul, Cainiao’s Cross-border business, commented: “As a global smart logistics company, Cainiao has been consistently enhancing its logistics services and efficiency to satisfy the booming demand for e-commerce in Europe and Middle East. Our partnership with Saudia Cargo has been fruitful, and we look forward to strengthening our cooperation in the long term.”

As e-commerce features strongly in Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030”, over the past few years, the cargo airline has placed emphasis on attracting the commodity, upping the number of cargo flights it operates to destinations in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America. With regard to Hong Kong, the number of flights serving the destination increased by more than 30%.

Ostend-Bruges Airport busy with clouds and the environment

Though not plagued by congestion and delays, Ostend-Bruges Airport has shifted to Nallian’s Cargo Cloud to ensure visibility, transparency and the prevent process problems that could occur when cargo volumes grow. It has opted for “the collaborative applications of Nallian’s Cargo Cloud, such as Inspection Management, Truck Visit Management, Check-it, and Cargo Statistics.” The digital system enables both process visibility when it comes to truck management, perishable goods inspections, and various operational and compliance checks, as well as key insights into possible improvement areas along the end-to-end cargo flows. Eric Dumas, CEO at Ostend-Bruges Airport, explained: “We have an ambitious cargo community that strives to deliver first-in-class service. Nallian’s Cargo Cloud is a robust platform that has proven its worth in many other cargo hubs. It’s easy-to-implement, modular approach will allow us to quickly activate functionality and generate first benefits and easily expand in the future. This digital tool will allow Ostend airport to strengthen its attractiveness and further increase the speed of cargo handling which is already one of its main differentiating assets. It completes the ambitious development project ‘Ostend Cargo Village’, the first building phase of which is already under construction.”

Jean Verheyen, CEO at Nallian, added: “It’s a misconception that solutions like Truck Visit Management, one of the collaborative applications on our Cargo Cloud, only generate value for big hubs facing congestion issues. The pandemic has illustrated the importance of air cargo and the need for efficient, transparent processes. Digitization is the way to achieve this. It has proven to generate significant benefits for big and small cargo hubs, and we are very proud to support Ostend Airport on its digitization journey.”

In other news last week, following a strict audit, the airport succeeded in renewing its environmental management certificate: ISO 14001, which it has held since 2013. “We take a structured, policy-based approach to environmental care. Our airport attaches great importance to environmental care and sustainable business,” Eric Dumas underlined. “We are proud to renew our ISO 14001 certificate for the next 3 years. It is our ambition to continue our commitment to the environment and to limit our impact as much as possible. For example, we are looking at the options of installing solar panels on the grassed areas at the airport. That way, we might also be able to generate energy.”

Romcargo ready to register second B747F

The new Romanian cargo airline, Romcargo Airlines (previously known as Fly Sky Airlines), initially started out with a single B747, obtaining its Romanian AOC in NOV21, only to become grounded for a week in DEC21 for undeclared reasons other than European Union Regulation 965/2012. An inauspicious start that is looking to improve this year. In MAR22, the US DOT granted it permission to fly to the U.S. from any European Common Aviation Area member country, with the comment: “It is in the public interest to issue the applicant a foreign air carrier permit. [...] We also find that the applicant is financially and operationally qualified to perform the services authorized, and that it is substantially owned and effectively controlled in a manner consistent with the provisions of the US-EU Agreement.” Helpful, since it operates daily flights between Liège/Brussels and Hong Kong via Bishkek/Kyrgyzstan, and has also flown Liège-Madrid-Liège roundtrips.

The average age of its fleet is due to improve shortly: its original, 32.3-year-old, ex-Thai Airways passenger-to-cargo converted B747-400 (reg: YR-FSA) is about to be joined by a second B747-400BDSF (Bedek Special Freighter) – this time from the Taiwanese airline, Eva Air Cargo. It, too, began life as a passenger aircraft for EVA Airways, before undergoing cargo conversion in Israel in 2007. It then continued to fly for the airline as a freighter. Registration YR-FSB has already seen 29.5 years of service, but brings the average fleet age down to 30.9 years. It is currently registered in the US as N27063, and has spent the last months in Jakarta/Indonesia, undergoing maintenance. In the next few weeks, it will be moved to a European airport for Romanian Civil Aviation Authority (AACR) verification before it enters commercial service for Romcargo Airlines. Romcargo can boast that it was the first airline to register a Boeing 747 aircraft in Romania.

Baltic neighbors support smooth handling services at RIX

Latvia and Estonia come together to ensure smooth handling operations over at Riga Airport (RIX), Latvia, the largest air cargo hub in the Baltics: The Latvian cargo handler, AG Handling, which runs two cargo terminals on and off the airport, opted for Estonian SaaS handling system provider, Qstep’s latest generation handling platform earlier this year: good news for its customers such as Lufthansa and LOT Polish Airlines. 2014-founded Qstep already serves 5 EU air cargo hubs and operates an ecommerce logistics SaaS platform for new postal service companies over at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol

“We went through a detailed selection process to choose the best available air cargo terminal handling system available for our size and type of business. Apart from only reviewing the tender documents, we also visited many locations where systems we reviewed were operating. In the end, we felt Qstep was the right choice,” says Gunars Peize, Director of AG Handling. “Now, [after] operating Qstep for several months already, we have received positive input from cargo forwarding community who now have much more control over both their export shipments from the moment they pre-advise shipments in our extranet (Qclient), giving us a possibility to plan the flow of resources in the warehouse, as well as their import shipments – having clear notifications showing transparent storage conditions and costs, complemented with automated invoicing. All in all, […] we now have a reliable system providing all cargo terminal and invoicing functionalities in one place. Also, important to note we now have not only all messaging to airline systems automated, but also integration to Latvian Customs electronic data system.”

“For Qstep, the move marks a new chapter in its international expansion as Riga becomes the fourth airport where our air cargo handling platform is being deployed after Helsinki, Tallinn and Vilnius”, Haiti Arendi, CEO of Qstep, elaborates. “Qstep platform enables all essential elements in a single window, from cargo operations and paperless warehouse management to automatic and intuitive communications with various stakeholders. In-built intelligence helps to prevent any unchecked shipments to be loaded to the aircraft such as security or DGR check. Invoices are automatically generated based on the actions performed in the warehouse which substantially increases the efficiency in the back office as well.”

Brigitte Gledhill

We welcome and publish comments from all authenticated users.