Air Charter Service helped to buy, wrap and deliver more than 300 Christmas presents for children in the remote region of Kowanyama Aboriginal Shire, in Queensland’s far north.
Chief executive of the broker’s Sydney office, Paul Crook, said the operation was planned for almost four months, with some of the team going shopping for the gifts at the toy store earlier in the month. They then helped to wrap them all, using more than 250 metres of wrapping paper. Seats were removed from the Cessna C208 Caravan aircraft removed to fit as many as possible.
ACS turns Santa to get gifts to Queensland
Air Canada ramps up in Germany
Air Canada has increased handling capacity at its Frankfurt hub by 35% in preparation for the start of its Boeing 767-300ER freighter service to the German hub later this year. The additional capacity is in addition to the existing 5,000sq metres (53,820sq ft) already it already operates at the self-handled facility.
IAG automates dangerous goods acceptance
IAG Cargo, which includes the British Airways, Aer Lingus, Iberia and Vueling cargo brands, has adopted IATA’s new Dangerous Goods AutoCheck system to automate acceptance of shipments at its London-Heathrow hub. DG AutoCheck checks all regulations, rules and guidance in the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations (DGR) and converts them into an automated validation solution. It uses optical character recognition technology to transform paper DG declarations into electronic data and facilitates verification of marks and labels.
Geodis expands in-house air operation
Freight forwarder Geodis has expanded its AirDirect in-house freighter aircraft operations, launched in August 2021, with new weekly services from Kuala Lumpur to Shanghai and Sydney and a second weekly rotation between Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong, Chennai and Kuala Lumpur. Services in Kuala Lumpur will dovetail with its road network to and from destinations throughout Southeast Asia. Geodis said the move would ease the strain on supply chains, amidst ongoing delays and flight cancellations across Southeast Asia due to the Omicron variant.
Cricket for all thanks to Virgin Cargo
Virgin Atlantic Cargo is making worldwide kit donations to the Bat For A Chance cricket charity, opening the batting in Barbados ahead of the January West Indies v England T20 games at the Kensington Oval.
The donations are overseen by the charity’s global ambassador, Barbadian-born T20 star Chris Jordan, The Roland Butcher Academy, and with assistance from Cricket West Indies.
Courtesy of sponsor construction equipment maker Energy and with the support of freight forwarder, The Woodland Group, the charity provided kit to girls who would otherwise not have access to the sport at local schools and universities.
American extends CHAMP deal
American Airlines has extended its partnership with CHAMP for access to the Traxon cargoHUB air cargo community platform. The carrier has been using the solution for more than two decades, which facilitates business with all community players via a single system regardless of message format or protocol.
Double-CEIV certification for dnata Brussels
Airfreight handler dnata has gained IATA CEIV certification for pharma and live animals at its Brussels Airport cargo facilities and Animal Care and Inspection Centre. It opened its cargo centre in 2019, substantially increasing capacity and has been also operating the Animal Care & Inspection Centre, a 2000sq m (21,525sq ft) facility with a team of 120 employees in the Belgian capital.
The CEIV Pharma program was created by IATA to provide a globally consistent and recognized pharmaceutical product handling certification that focuses on airfreight and temporary storage.
IATA global head of cargo, Brendan Sullivan, said: “The safe and efficient transportation of temperature sensitive Pharma products and live animals is a key priority for our industry. We congratulate dnata for achieving both CEIV Pharma and Live Animals certification at their Brussels hub. Shippers can enjoy additional reassurance that their facilities, equipment, operations and staff comply with all applicable standards, regulations and guidelines.”
Brussels Airport head of cargo product and network development, Nathan De Valck, added: “As the first and largest airport community in the world with CEIV Pharma certified stakeholders, this certification of dnata further strengthens our position as preferred EU pharma gateway and increases the guarantee of qualitative handling of time and temperature sensitive cargo throughout the entire air cargo chain.”
Air China touches down in Munich
Air China has launched a six times a week Boeing 777 freighter service between Beijing and Munich, the first regular cargo connection to be operated non-stop from Munich to the Chinese capital. Automotive supplies are expected to be a major traffic, among others.
Cargo-Partner offers Austria air link
European forwarder Cargo-partner has added another chartered air route to its network, between Vienna and Chicago in addition to its existing connections between Asia and Europe, in response to customers looking for alternative transport solutions to keep their supply chains moving.
Since the end of 2021, it has been offering a weekly part-load charter program from Vienna to Chicago O’Hare International Airport. Vienna is a hub for Central and Eastern Europe, while Chicago is a strategic starting point for distribution in the US Midwest. Cargo-partner operates its own warehouses at both locations and can offeer door-to-door solutions.
It already runs regular cargo charter flights from Hong Kong to Budapest with three weekly departures, as well as flights twice a week from Budapest to Zhengzhou and back, plus weekly flights from Frankfurt to Zhengzhou and Zhengzhou to Cologne.
It also offers a groupage service with weekly departures from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to Munich, Frankfurt and Vienna.
The Cargo-partner teams in Linz and Vietnam recently organized a time-critical transport from Hanoi to Linz, chartering an Antonov An-124. The cargo of over 92,000kg on 287 pallets needed 12 trucks for onward distribution to Western Europe.
Picture – Lati-Salem Anotonov
Schiphol sees growth in a difficult year
Freight at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol grew 15.7% in 2021 over 2020 to 1.66 million tonnes. Inbound cargo was u 15.2% to 869,241 tonnes in 2021 while outbound increased by 16.1% to 798,063 tonnes.
The top three destinations for cargo by tonnage were Shanghai, Chicago and Dubai.
Full freighters accounted for 67% of total freight and passenger flights 33%.
The airport attributed the growth to the return of sufficient slot availability, as well as high demand. Late 2021 saw some difficulties with operational capacity owing to the high demand and capacity challenges experienced by the global air freight sector at large, but Schiphol quickly set up a taskforce with its supply chain partners at Schiphol Zuidoost.
Head of Aviation Business Development, Anne Marie van Hemert (pictured), said: “The 2021 figures are encouraging in light of the ongoing challenges of Covid on the operating environment. Last year, the cargo team formed a new Aviation Business Development Division, putting all airline and cargo commercial and operational business in a single department and introducing new faces.
“The newly established team has focused on accelerating our Smart Cargo Mainport Program and ensuring faster handling of export cargo, resulting in digital pre-notification for all ground handlers at Schiphol as the new standard.
For the future, Schiphol is promising a refreshed cargo strategy to tackle challenges including capacity shortage, landside congestion, sustainability, security for valuable cargo, enforcement of smart customs policies and digitalisation.
The airport has furthermore worked with stakeholders and partners on the development of the local rule 2, which states that slots that are given back or re-delivered will be prioritised for cargo flights. Approval for this is being sought from the ministry and ACNL, and the work is hoped to be finalized this year.
((Pic – van Hemert))