Under the patronage of the Minister of Transport his Excellency Eng. Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, Saudi Arabian Logistics (SAL) launches its operations at the Model Cargo Village at King Khalid International Airport (KKIA). The launch was announced during a webinar attended by Abdulhadi Al-Mansouri, the President of General Authority of Civil Aviation, Sami Sindi, the Director-General of Saudi Arabian Airlines Corporation, Fawaz Al-Fawaz, SAL Chairman, Mohammad Abunayyan, SAL Executive Board Member and Mohammed Al Maghlouth, CEO of Riyadh Airports Company.
In a speech, SAL CEO Omar Hariri said although the Kingdom is facing great difficulties and challenges because of COVID-19, the development in the country has continued. This integrated logistics project provides general and specialized handling services for cold chain goods, perishables, medicine, cars and hazardous materials including express and air mail as well as e-commerce shipments.
The facility runs on an area of 42,000 square meters and includes a 20,000 square meters warehousing with an area of 6,600 square meters for exported goods, 6,500 square meters for e-commerce and 5,200 square meters for cold storage shipments. The capacity of the entire facility reaches 450 thousand tons a year. The handling operations are performed through 16 Loading dock. The facility has been equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
Hariri also, pointed out that the new cargo facilities in Jeddah’s King Abdulaziz International Airport will be ready this September with a total area of 131,000 square meters of which 65,000 square meters will be dedicated to warehouses. The facilities will help enhance the flow of cargo to and through the Kingdom and make the country a global logistics hub.
The Minister of Transport hailed the SAL new facilities at King Khalid International Airport and spoke highly of the vital role the cargo services and operations providing foodstuffs, medical supplies and essential goods. The new project will handle all types of cargo and help transform the Kingdom into a global logistics center.
The UAE has announced the gradual opening up of its airspace to allow operations of limited flights.
“The UAE government has decided to resume transit flights by national carriers Etihad, Emirates, Fly Dubai and Air Arabia via Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah airports. The decision to resume flights comes after comprehensive assessment of the Covid situation,” Dr Saif Al Dhaheri, Spokesman for National Crisis & Emergency Management Authority (NCEMA) said during a press virtual briefing.
Welcoming the decision, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, president of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, CEO and chairman of the Emirates Group, said that Dubai airlines will soon announce resumption of passenger flights. “We welcome the UAE authorities’ decision to re-open UAE airports for all connecting travelers. @Emirates and flydubai will shortly announce the resumption of passenger flights to more cities with connections to, and through, Dubai,” he tweeted.
Al Dhaheri added that, currently, only transit and special flights to repatriate expatriates or to facilitate the return of residents and citizens will be allowed. The official noted the decision to suspend regular inbound and outbound flights remains in effect, adding that the government has been working closely with the General Civil Aviation Authority as well as health authorities to put in place comprehensive guidelines to ensure health and safety of passengers at all times.
“Airport staff across the country have been thoroughly trained on precautionary measures to prevent the spread of Covid-19, including screening of passengers and dealing with suspected cases,” he added.
Al Dhaheri said that in the coming days, the airlines will announce procedures related to their operational activities, and comprehensive safety measures are in place in all the country’s airports to ensure the safety of the passengers on these flights.
Dubai Airports has installed personal protective equipment (PPE) vending machines to ensure passengers’ safe travels.
The two machines are located in the departure areas of Buildings 3 and 2, state run news agency Dubai Media Office reported.
The PPE includes a pair of gloves, and two types of disinfectants. More products are expected to be added in the coming days, including reusable and certified face masks.
In addition to the cargo and repatriation flights, which continued throughout the suspension of flights as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak, Dubai Airports has handled a number of scheduled passenger flights from Terminal 3 to select destinations starting from 21 May.
In March 2020, Dubai Airports appointed Sharjah-based public-private partnership firm Bee’ah as its waste management partner for the Dubai International Airport and Dubai World Central, to work in partnership with Dubai Airports’ facilities care team to dispose waste from excess baggage and confiscated materials, as well as oversee both airside and landside waste management operations, including non-hazardous and hazardous waste, used cooking and engine oil waste, and all recyclables.
Air Arabia recently reported a profitable first quarter (January to March) 2020 despite COVID-19 impact on the carrier’s first quarter financial and operational performance.
Air Arabia reported a net profit of Dh71 million for the three months ending March 31, 2020, a 45 percent less than the corresponding 2019 figure of Dh128 million. In the same period, the airline posted a turnover of Dh901 million, a 12 percent less than the corresponding first quarter of last year. More than 2.4 million passengers flew with Air Arabia between January and March 2020 across the carrier’s four hubs, a 14 percent lower than the number of passengers carried in the first quarter of last year. The airline’s average seat load factor – or passengers carried as a percentage of available seats – during the first three months of 2020 maintained its high average and stood at 83 percent. Air Arabia managed to register a profitable first quarter despite performance being impacted by COVID-19 pandemic that hit the global air travel in mid-February and continues to impact the aviation industry.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed Al Thani, Chairman of Air Arabia, said, “Air Arabia witnessed a strong start of the year across the breadth of its operations. However, the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the global aviation, which materialized in airport closures, travel restrictions and low travel demand, has affected the overall performance of the quarter. Nonetheless, we are glad that Air Arabia still managed to deliver profitability and solid performance during the first quarter of this year”.
He added, “Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have reacted quickly and took all possible measures to protect our passengers and crew while ensuring we continue to fly safely where we can. Additionally, the management team has taken a series of business decisions to control our fixed and running costs during this period while supporting our business continuity. All these measures are set in motion at a time when airlines around the world continue to battle the biggest challenge faced in the history of aviation”.
Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohamed Al Thani concluded: “Air Arabia enjoys a flexible and robust business model and is driven by a clear business strategy. While this pandemic remains impacting the world economy and providing very little visibility towards the future, we have full confidence in the strength of the aviation industry worldwide and its crucial role in supporting economic recovery post COVID-19. In the meantime, we continue to make daily decisions that supports our business continuity and remain fully engaged with regulators to ensure we can serve our customers while adhering to the highest international safety standards”.
Last month, the carrier announced that Air Arabia Abu Dhabi has received its Air Operating Certificate (AOC), highlighting its readiness to start operating from Abu Dhabi as market conditions improve and skies are open again. The carrier’s loyalty program, Air Rewards, also won the 210 Rising Star Award at the 2020 Freddie Awards for Middle East, Asia and Oceania during a ceremony held online. These awards meant to recognize the up and coming loyalty program delivering value to members around the world.
With close to 100 daily cargo flights operated to a destination network spanning more than 65 cities across six continents, Emirates SkyCargo is leading the global cargo industry during these critical times in delivering essential supplies and commodities to people around the world.
The air cargo carrier is currently operating 11 Boeing 777 freighter aircraft, each with a capacity to transport about 100 tons cargo per flight and around 60 of its Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft as dedicated cargo aircraft, with a 40-50 ton belly hold cargo capacity per flight.
In a bid to further optimize cargo operations and capacity, Emirates SkyCargo has also started loading cargo in the overhead bins and seats of its Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft. This move has been made in response to growing customer demand out of key markets.
Nabil Sultan, Emirates divisional senior vice president, cargo said, “We took a measured approach to the loading of cargo inside the cabins of our Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft. Safety of our people and operations is the first priority for us and we had to therefore evaluate the demand from the market against potential risks to our operations. We have now, after a complete evaluation, rolled out a detailed set of guidelines and procedures including strict rules on the kind of cargo that can be loaded inside the cabin.
“We have operated flights from stations such as Tokyo and New Delhi with cargo in the overhead bins and seats and are now in a position to be able to safely and optimally respond to customer demands for additional cargo capacity from main global production markets. We will be operating more flights over the coming weeks with cargo in both the belly as well as inside the main cabin. In addition, we are also looking at other measures including the removal of seats from select aircraft to deploy on high demand trade lanes,” commented Sultan.
For the loading of cargo in the seats and overhead bins inside passenger cabin of the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, the air cargo carrier has developed a robust set of guidelines for its global teams on handling procedures and has also introduced a smart calculator application to help its employees around the world to calculate optimal loading capacity inside the passenger cabin of Emirates’ Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Emirates SkyCargo would be able to provide up to 24 tons of additional cargo capacity with complete loading of overhead bins and seats in its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
Etihad Airways has launched ‘Etihad Wellness’, an expanded and more comprehensive health and hygiene program and customer guide put in place to deal with COVID-19.
Etihad Wellness initiatives will be communicated through an easy-to-use online guide highlighting the high standards of cleanliness, health and hygiene being applied at every stage of the customer journey. This includes culinary hygiene at the airline’s catering facilities and food testing laboratory, aircraft cabin deep-cleaning, check-in, health screening, boarding, inflight experience and product, crew interaction, arrival, and ground transportation. Comprehensive information on these travel health and hygiene measures is available at www.etihad.com/wellness.
Tony Douglas, Group chief executive officer, Etihad Aviation Group, said: “For those needing more specific and personalized information, skilled Wellness Ambassadors can be contacted directly 24/7 by emailing wellness@etihad.ae. This dedicated multi-lingual team will offer reassurance to customers by sharing advice on travel wellbeing and details of the health and sanitization measures being implemented throughout their journey. Etihad will expand the service to include a web-chat option. All Wellness Ambassadors will undergo special training at the airline’s training facilities in Abu Dhabi, and online.
“Providing for our guests, and their wellbeing, is one of Etihad’s core values, and we have a responsibility to protect them, to keep them fully informed, and to provide even greater levels of genuine warmth and personal care. We must guarantee they can travel assured in the knowledge that we have every aspect of their journey with us covered, while still providing a top-quality travel experience. The Wellness Ambassadors will play an important role in delivering this. For us it is not simply about dealing with a new normal – this level of genuine and innovative customer care has always been part of Etihad’s DNA since our inception.”
Etihad will also be introducing Wellness Ambassadors at Abu Dhabi International Airport in partnership with Abu Dhabi Airports (ADAC) over the next few weeks.
“This will make sure the same levels of care and support are provided at every point of the customer journey through the airport, from check-in to security, immigration, the retail areas, lounges and boarding, so that guests can fly with added comfort, security and confidence,” said Douglas.
“The wide-ranging measures we are taking are a strong reflection of those already in place across the emirate of Abu Dhabi. When restrictions are fully lifted and travelers can once again enjoy the best our wonderful home has to offer, they can rest assured their trip will be to one of the cleanest and most well-maintained destinations in the world. This will of course also apply to those transiting onwards through the capital. We are grateful to our partners, including Abu Dhabi Airports, and the Department of Culture and Tourism, for their close cooperation in this far-reaching program.”
The number of flights on offer from Munich Airport will be expanded again over the coming weeks following the drastic reduction due to the coronavirus pandemic. Over the past few months, international air travel in particular had come to a virtual standstill on account of the numerous travel restrictions. Now, many airlines are starting to gradually ramp up their operations once again in June.
Lufthansa will be flying regularly from Munich to Brussels, Milan, Rome, Vienna, and Zurich again within the next few days. Two attractive cities in the US will also be on the list of nonstop destinations with Lufthansa starting this coming week. On Tuesday, June 2, the airline reopened its route from Munich to Chicago. The first flight to Los Angeles is scheduled to take place one day later. Initially, service to both US destinations is to be provided three days a week. Lufthansa is also expected to conduct three weekly flights on its route from Munich to Tel Aviv once more as of June 3.
Lufthansa subsidiary Eurowings has already been flying its route from Munich to Palma de Mallorca again and will also be offering flights to Pristina again starting June 6.
Qatar Airways, which has maintained its operations in Munich over the past several weeks, will continue flying to Doha four times per week. Greece’s AEGEAN Airlines has re-established its connection from Munich to Athens and is offering three weekly flights there to start with. Effective immediately, Luxair is again providing service from Munich to Luxembourg five times a week, and airBaltic has reactivated its service to Riga with four flights per week. The schedule of existing connections operated by Alitalia to Rome, KLM to Amsterdam, Air France to Paris, Finnair to Helsinki, and Belavia to Minsk will be partially expanded to provide greater frequency.
Lufthansa will begin flying from Munich to a large number of additional destinations starting in mid-June. Besides the long-haul destinations of San Francisco, Montreal, Delhi, and Seoul, it plans to fly to 30 more European cities once again on a regular schedule. Many other airlines have also announced they will be resuming flights to many destinations as early as the second half of June. However, the precise details of the flights from and to Munich that are being added have not yet been made available.
Until further notice, all arrivals and departures at Munich Airport will continue to be operated via Terminal 2.
The international transport and info-logistics provider is broadening its service offering in Western Europe and has opened two new locations in Belgium and the Netherlands. A new warehouse including office space in Roermond, Netherlands, as well as an office at the airport in Liège, Belgium, mark the expansion of cargo-partner’s regional network.
With the opening of the new sales and customer sService office at Liège airport (LGG), cargo-partner is highlighting its strength in air freight and establishing direct representation at this important air freight hub. The airport in Liège has stood out recently with strong volume growth, a complete absence of flight restrictions, and customer-friendly solutions while other European air freight transshipment sites have stagnated. Numerous companies from the pharmaceutical and automotive industry have moved into the region and are benefiting from the favorable geographic and economic situation with a broad catchment area. Thanks to the many carriers active at the Liège airport, it has developed into a significant e-commerce hub. As the cargo-partner shipping volumes at LGG have grown continuously, the decision was finally made to establish a new branch office, which went into operation already in April.
Just a little more than an hour’s drive away, cargo-partner opened a new office and warehouse site in Roermond, The Netherlands, at the start of May. The convenient transportation connections of this location in southeastern Netherlands, right on the border with Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany, were decisive for the site selection. Three capital cities and the German Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region with 10 million residents are all located within 250 kms of this logistics hotspot. In addition, 60% of the purchasing power of the European Union is situated within 500 km. The most important airports in the region are also close by.
The office in Roermond will be responsible for processing numerous national and international overland shipments by cargo-partner, while the new warehouse will function as a consolidation center for the regional logistics business when it opens at the beginning of June. The first regular truck routes between Western Europe and South- and Northeastern Europe already commenced operation on May 11 with the first connection out of Vienna. Moreover, cargo-partner offers combined road and rail transportation solutions from and to China via numerous rail transportation nodes in Europe.
The new warehouse has 7,000 sq m of storage area as well as a cross-docking area and eight truck docks. The site is under continuous video surveillance and is equipped with a CO₂ gas extinguishing system and state-of-the-art fire safety equipment. Hazardous goods can be stored in IBC containers, in drums and on pallets. The site is also suitable for the storage of hazardous goods packages of classes 2.3, 4.1, 6.1, 8 and 9.
Stefan Krauter, CEO of cargo-partner, on the decision to open the two cargo-partner locations: “The positive business developments of our branches in the Benelux countries led to the decision to expand our network in this dynamic region with its important hubs. We are certain that the outstanding work of our local colleagues will add tremendous value and enhance the service quality of our entire company.”
cargo-partner has been present in the Netherlands (Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Roermond) since 2006 and in Belgium (Brussels, Antwerp, Liège) since 2007. In Rotterdam, cargo-partner also operates its Project Cargo Competence Center, which is specialized in the transport of extra-large and heavy cargo.
UPS recently announced the company will commemorate World Environment Day on June 5 by matching the carbon offsets of all parcels shipped via its carbon-neutral program during the month of June. UPS carbon neutral counterbalances the estimated carbon impact of each shipment by purchasing certified carbon offsets.
“There is truly no better way to honor World Environment Day than to facilitate actions that will help the planet,” said Suzanne Lindsay-Walker, UPS chief sustainability officer (CSO) and vice president of environmental affairs. “UPS hopes to create more awareness about our carbon neutral shipping option so additional customers will take advantage of it, thus helping to fund large-scale carbon reduction programs and reduce the total carbon impact of shipping on the environment.”
To participate, shippers pay a small fee to offset the carbon footprint of shipping their parcels then UPS will match these offsets throughout June. This is essentially doubling the shipper’s impact thereby allowing the shipper to potentially net out “carbon negative” in June. The per parcel flat rate price for the optional service is £0.10 for domestic shipments, £0.20 for shipments destined to the EU, as well as for UPS Standard shipments to Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, £0.50 for shipments destined outside of the EU and for UPS Expedited, and £12.50 per pallet for UPS Worldwide Express Freight shipments.
UPS started its carbon neutral program in 2010 and offsets more than 60 million parcels annually for customers, which equates to more than 100,000 metric tonnes of carbon offset each year. UPS has supported projects worldwide that include forestation, landfill gas destruction, and wastewater treatment. UPS carbon neutral option is verified by Société Générale de Surveillance (SGS), an inspection, testing, and verification company. Additionally, UPS’s carbon offset process adheres to The CarbonNeutral Protocol from Natural Capital Partners.
Where consolidated deliveries can take place for multiple consumers preventing several delivery attempts to a single residence.
Elbe Aircraft Works (EFW) recently delivered another A330-300P2F freighter. The A330 has been refitted for DHL in recent months. This aircraft with the serial number MSN777 is the first on the market to allow a particularly high load with a gross payload of more than 62 tons.
“The demand for modern fly-by-wire freighters with a high payload, large load volume, and full-fledged container positions has been apparent for some time,” says Andreas Sperl, CEO of Elbe Flugzeugwerke GmbH. “Even under the conditions of the Corona pandemic, we want to reliably deliver conversion freighters of the new programs to our customers as usual and are very pleased that we were able to hand over a large-capacity freighter with the MSN777 to DHL.”
With the delivery of the A330, the Elbe aircraft plants were able to increase the original payload planning by three tonnes to up to 63 tonnes for their current conversion program A330-300 P2F.
Converted A330 aircraft from EFW also have functions that allow the aircraft to operate even more efficiently in freighter operation. This includes, for example, the intelligent cargo loading system, which can be used to position several containers at the same time, thus saving valuable loading and unloading time. Two more 330-300P2F will be delivered to DHL later this year. Up to twelve more A330s will follow for the express service provider.
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