KLM Cargo has appointed Charlotte Elpers as vice-president worldwide operations, effective from 1 March 2025. She will the Dutch carrier’s global cargo operations, bringing nearly two decades of leadership experience within the KLM Group, most recently as vice president passenger services at Schiphol. She succeeds Koen Bolster who becomes executive vice president hub operations on 1 February.
Delta signs deal with Cargo.one
Delta Cargo has signed a long-term agreement with digital air freight procurement platform Cargo.one to expand its services and presence to more freight forwarding branches. The deal will allow Cargo.one’s user base of more than 20,000 forwarders to discover, quote, book and track Delta Cargo capacity via the platform.
Starting in spring of 2025, Cargo.one will offer Delta Cargo capacity for general cargo bookings in select markets.
Menzies Macau wins Li-batt mark
Menzies Aviation has been awarded IATA’s Center of Excellence for Independent Validators Lithium Batteries (CEIV Li-batt) certification for its cargo operations at Macau International Airport. Macau is the first location across the Menzies network to receive this certification, with other locations set to follow.
Qatar interline bookings go online
Qatar Airways Cargo is offering online bookings with instant confirmations to interline partners through its Digital Lounge portal. Interline partners can now manage online bookings without having to contact local station staff, reducing the manual exchange of booking emails.
The Interline booking feature is currently being used by American Airlines Cargo and Latam Cargo to manage all their bookings on Qatar Airways Cargo flights and Qatar Airways aims to extend Digital Lounge to all its interline partners in the coming months.
Digital Lounge features also include tracking and tracing, uploading of multiple dimensions per shipment, notifications configuration per air waybill, BUP bookings with ULD details, allotment bookings and a 24/7 in-house technical support team.
Recently, Qatar Airways Cargo introduced a ‘My Allotments’ feature on the portal, providing real-time visibility, prevents overbooking, and optimised shipment planning.
Hellmann appoints airfreight head
German forwarder Hellmann has appointed Martin Habisreitinger as chief operating officer airfreight, with effect from February 1, 2025.
Martin Habisreitinger brings over 20 years of experience in global airfreight management, having held senior roles at Kühne & Nagel, DB Schenker, and most recently DHL Global Forwarding, where he served as vice president for Starbroker Asia Pacific.
He will succeed Jan Kleine-Lasthues, who, after 13 successful years with Hellmann, has decided to pursue other opportunities. Martin Habisreitinger will report to Madhav Kurup, who will assume the position of COO airfreight, seafreight, and contract logistics on the Global Management Board at the beginning of next year.
Seven firms gain CEIV Pharma mark in Puerto Rico
Seven members of the Puerto Rico Life Sciences Air Cargo Community have achieved International Air Transport Association (IATA) Centre of Excellence for Independent Validators (CEIV) Pharma certification. The accredited members are American Airlines, Prime Air Corp, ETH Cargo, Expeditors, César Castillo, Isla Frio Refrigeration, and Ground Motive Dependable Airline Services.
The Department of Economic Development and Commerce of Puerto Rico (DEDC), which has supported the Community since its launch, secured an 80% subsidy for organizations wishing to participate in the CEIV process, facilitated by research centre, Industry University Research Centre Inc. (INDUNIV).
DEDC secretary Manuel Cidre, said: “These accreditations are a monumental step forward in the development of Puerto Rico’s life sciences sector. By investing in these certifications and subsidizing participation, we are not only elevating the quality of our cold chain operations, but also empowering smaller organizations through education and collaboration across the Community.”
CEIV-accredited companies are encouraged to participate in training initiatives hosted by the Community to educate smaller organisations in Puerto Rico on how to correctly and safely operate within the cool chain.
“The CEIV Pharma Certification process has enabled us to improve our quality and compliance systems, and with other Community members doing the same, pharma handling across the island is continuously improving,” said vice president of Prime Air Corp, Tom Vincent.
The Community of over 40 members includes pharmaceutical and medical manufacturers, forwarders, airports, airlines, and representatives of the DEDC.
The first member of the Community to achieve the IATA CEIV Pharma accreditation was logistics provider, ETH Cargo, in March 2024.
Emirates joins the fight against illegal donkey skin trade
Dubai-based carrier Emirates has joined forces with an animal charity to combat the trafficking of donkey skins. The Donkey Sanctuary and Emirates have created an operational guide to highlight the risks posed by the trade and its association with organised crime.
The guidelines explain the biosecurity risk of smuggling inadequately processed donkey skins alongside legitimate cargo such as leather or textiles, for example. It also highlights concealment methods and crime convergence, where networks involved in the donkey skin trade may also be linked to organised crime such as wildlife and drug trafficking.
According to The Donkey Sanctuary’s, six million donkeys are killed for their skins each year, the majority in Africa. These skins are then exported across the world, by ship and by air, before being used to make traditional medicine and remedies.
Research by the Sanctuary and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School and Wildlife Conservation Research Unit has exposed the link between the movement of donkey skins with other illegal wildlife trafficking and organised crime. The unregulated and unhygienic skin trade also poses a serious threat to global biosecurity.
Emirates already bans transport of donkey hides and, in February this year, African Heads of State endorsed a continent-wide moratorium on the slaughter of donkeys for their skins at the 37th African Union (AU) Summit.
Canada’s WestJet in blood donation drive
WestJet Cargo is partnering with Canadian Blood Services (CBS) to launch a national campaign to raise awareness of donations. The carrier says the move shows its commitment to community health while demonstrating its operational agility and expertise in the safe and efficient transport of urgent medical supplies across Canada.
WestJet Cargo has for the past five years supported CBS by transporting life-saving blood and plasma products to hospitals and patients in need and can reach 65% of Canadians within four hours via its primary hub in Calgary. Its Priority service gives health care providers expedited handling, faster loading and reduced cut-off times.
The airline’s employees took part in a blood donation drive that took place on November 19.
Integrated Skypallet speeds TAP cargo
TAP Air Cargo, a customer of the Skypallet optimisation program since October 2022, has now embedded it into its capacity optimization process by implementing an API integration between Skypallet and Champ’s cargo management solution, Cargospot Airline. This enables TAP Air Cargo staff to automatically transfer the air waybill data for flights from Cargospot to Skypallet for shipment evaluation and flight planning, including co-loadability checks and segregation. It also creates a single source of information for any later changes such as bookings, which can be quickly reflected in Skypallet. The carrier anticipates that it will reduce the time taken to plan and release a flight from a typical 15-30 minutes to a matter of seconds.
Fifty years for Florida freighter airline
Florida freighter operator Amerijet International Airlines is celebrating its 50th anniversary in December. Founded in 1974 by David Bassett as an air-taxi operator with a single leased airplane, today it operates 12 767 freighters serving the Caribbean and& Central America.
Its Miami Hub includes 235,600sq ft of dry warehouse and 38,000sq ft of cooler space as well as seven dedicated 767 aircraft parking positions.
Chief executive Joe Mozzali stated: “For a company to achieve a 50th year anniversary milestone is extremely impressive, especially in the dynamic Latin America air cargo market. This is a direct reflection of our resilience while providing value and service to customers and communities. We could not do what we do without our most valuable asset, our people. I want to thank our employees for their dedicated efforts as well as our customers for their loyal support.”
The company adds that scheduled service and charter revenue for the 11 months to November increased 18% and 39%, respectively.
