GermanyReview ATC continues to broaden its global reach Leipzig/Halle eyes record year


Ingo Zimmer, CEO of ATC Aviation Services, declares: “2010 was a wonderful year – and 2011 will be outstanding.” Although imports into Europe may be adversely affected by the develop- ments in the Eurozone and related levels of consumer confidence, Zimmer is bullish. “We are export-oriented and work on longer distance sectors, rather than intra-Europe. “The demand for machinery and pharmaceu-


ticals will always be there. The automotive industry has recovered very strongly – and this is a globalised industry that has driven the German economy.” Plus: “Our customers are tending more and


more to use widebody and freighter aircraft, which gives us more capacity to sell.” At home: “ATC in Frankfurt is already close to


budget. In Germany we are doing between 7,000 and 8,000 tonnes of air freight a month and we have some strong customers, such as Etihad, Asiana and ANA.” He went on: “Our office in Switzerland is doing very well – we have good tonnage and good customers there.” These include


Zimmer: “2010 was a wonderful year – and 2011 will be outstanding”


Turkish Airlines, Qatar and Continental. And in fact, following the merger between the latter car- rier and United Airlines, ATC will represent United in Switzerland as of 1 October, Zimmer confirmed. Summing up recent developments at ATC, he


said: “We have a new contract with ACG Air Cargo Germany in the Nordics and we have Africa West in the Benelux countries. We now represent South America’s Avianca Taca Group in a large part of Europe. “One of our existing customers in Germany,


Etihad, is going to add a flight to Düsseldorf – it already serves Frankfurt and Munich. And ANA is looking into adding a third daily rotation from Germany.” Elsewhere: “South Africa is finalised now with our office in Johannesburg (ACW, 7 March, p9).


There we represent Egyptair, Air Namibia, Air Zimbabwe, Air Botswana and ACG. We are looking at the Americas too, in par- ticular, the US and Brazil. Asia is also on our map – so there are a lot of things cooking,” Zimmer concluded.


“Between January and August, we handled 492,145 tonnes of cargo at Leipzig/Halle International airport,” observes a spokesperson at Mitteldeutsche Airport Holding, operator of the gateway. This figure represented an increase of 18.3 per- cent, he noted, adding: “For 2011, we expect a new record of around 700,000 tonnes.” The airport authority is currently extending the apron


area, used by DHL, so that it includes four parking spaces for widebody freighters. Capacity is going to be increased by approximately 13 percent by autumn next year, Schuhart noted, and excavation work for the apron extension is cur- rently proceeding “according to schedule”. Together with work on the gateway’s southern runway,


the total cost of the building effort in this part of the airport will be 13 million euros (US$17.7 million), he said. Construction in the northern part of the facility is also


planned, work that is expected to cost about 40 million euros ($56 million). Development will include the creation of an additional apron for up to five widebody aircraft. Con- struction work is scheduled for completion by 2012. nDHL has broken ground on a new 15,000m2


multi-user


distribution centre at the airport, its European air freight hub. The facility is due to open in May 2012 and – the inte- grator said – is designed as an ‘end-of-runway’ operation that combines the strengths of the two DHL divisions Express and Supply Chain. DHL is investing 14 million euros (US$19.1) in the centre.


Chapman Freeborn expands On Board Courier operation


Reacting to growing demand for its services, the On Board Courier (OBC) team of Chapman Freeborn has added to its team in Germany and relocated to new headquarters at Cologne Bonn International airport. Pasquale Bellarosa has been named business and development


manager of the company’s OBC business, which hand-delivers time-critical parts and documents worldwide for a wide variety of customers. Elsewhere, Chapman Freeborn’s by-hand delivery operation


has been strengthened of late by the establishment of an OBC presence in Beijing, Houston, Istanbul and Singapore, with further plans to develop the service in India and South America. Carsten Volk, global product manager for Chapman Freeborn


OBC, explains: “With existing charter clients regularly asking for courier services, it was a logical step to develop an OBC product to specifically address this market. “With high security standards, our service provides an excel-


lent transport solution which will be of great comfort to our customers,” he concluded.


Berlin runs into some turbulence


Berlin’s Schoenefeld and Tegel airports handled a total of 2,461 tonnes of cargo in August, down by 5.1 percent on the same month of 2010. Operator Berlin Flughäfen blamed the decline on a nationwide trend of falling exports. It also noted, however, that over the January to August


period, freight processed at the two gateways rose by 23.3 percent year-on-year to reach a total of 21,204 tonnes. Berlin is playing host to the 17th World Route Develop-


ment Forum as this issue of ACWgoes to press. World Routes is being held in the city between 2 and 4 October and one of the highlights of the event, the networking evening on 3 October, will take place at the new Berlin Brandenburg airport. It should prove a great opportunity for the soon-to-be-opened gateway to show off its potential.


Page 12 3 October 2011


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