Handling company dnata is to invest €200 million investment in a 61,000sq m (656,600sq ft) fully automated cargo centre at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. The facility is scheduled to open in 2024.
Cargo City Amsterdam, at Schiphol South-East, will include 19,000assq m (204.500sq ft) warehouse space and an annual capacity of over 850,000 tonnes. It will comply with the highest industry standards, including perishables, pharmaceuticals, dangerous goods, mail, live animals, aircraft engines and vehicles.
It will be developed by Schiphol Commercial Real Estate and equipped by Lödige Industries. The facility will have two separate automated storage and retrieval systems for up to 2,500 pallets with 12 stacker cranes with a separate storage areas for ULDs serviced by four elevating transport vehicles (ETV).
Seven Lödige Industries intelligent automated guided vehicles will move ULDs within the terminal, the first large scale application of the technology. Smart gates will automatically record the volume and weight of all incoming consignments by scanning them in 3D.
Other developments by dnata include new cargo facilities in Manchester (UK), Karachi and Lahore (Pakistan), and additional cargo capacity and infrastructure in Brussels (Belgium), Sydney (Australia) and Toronto (Canada). In March dnata will open the second phase of the dnata City East project at London Heathrow.
Handler to build state-of-the-art Schiphol site
Kenya Airways to end monkey transport
Action for Primates has welcomed a commitment by Kenya Airways to end the transportation of research monkeys and has renewed its call to Spanish holiday charter airline Wamos Air, to do the same.
Kenya Airways said it would not renew a contract to transport the monkeys which expires in February this year. It follows a recent US truck crash involving 100 long-tailed macaques that had been flown from Mauritius to JFK by Kenya Airways.
Action for Primates says that a number of other including American Airlines, British Airways, United Airlines, South African Airways, Air China, China Airlines, Delta Airlines, Eva Air and Air Canada have ended their involvement in the trade.
It adds that Wamos Air has transported thousands of long-tailed macaques from Cambodia to Houston for Envigo, a global contract testing corporation with the monkeys confined to small transit crates for around 40 hours.
ACS turns Santa to get gifts to Queensland
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.
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.