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Issue 7 2015 - Freight Business Journal


19 Less pain for Spain and Portugal


The clouds of recession are finally liſting from the Iberian Peninsula. Economies are starting to grow again and with it, the freight is beginning to flow.


Encouragement and The drugs do work for IAG Cargo


IAG Cargo is currently strongly focused on growing its pharmaceutical service, which is performing well in Spain as in the rest of the world, says regional sales manager, Idoia Martinez. She says: “At present we are


strongly focused on growing our pharmaceuticals offering, which is performing well in Spain and across the rest of the world. Spain is a very important region, especially Catalonia. To make the most of this opportunity we are working hard to ensure we deliver the highest quality service through Constant Climate, our specialist product for the time- and temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals.” IAG Cargo currently has


106 Constant Climate stations, which ensure that temperature sensitive drugs are kept at the required temperature. Many of these stations are in Latin America, which is a hugely important market for shipping generic medicines from Asia and elsewhere – a flow which IAG serves well and is a key differentiator. In March this year, IAG a


launched new route into Colombia and reopened the


disappointment in equal measure


Graham Martin, managing director of Manchester based forwarder FFG International says that since the company began seriously to trade from Spain three years ago, “we have some some good reasons for cheer with trade in general on the up with the UK.” FFG entered the tile and stone


service to Cuba, connecting Cali and Medellín in Colombia and Havana in Cuba to IAG’s global network through its Madrid hub. At the same time it has increased flights into Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic from five a week to daily. IAG recently ordered 11 new


planes - eight A350-900 and three A330-200 widebody aircraſt - as part of a wider fleet modernisation programme to introduce more fuel efficient aircraſt that are better suited to the needs of cargo. IAG Cargo is of course still


exposed to the same pressures as the rest of the industry, continues Idoia Martinez. “However, we have seen strong flows of perishables, continued growth


of our pharmaceutical product and the opening of new stations which has been of real value to our customers wanting to reach new markets.” Madrid is already a major hub


connecting Europe to global markets, in particular those in Latin America, and above all Central America. Destinations such as Buenos Aires and Bogata are becoming hugely important for Asia Pacific shippers, a market which IAG Cargo is ideally placed to service. “Similarly, few carriers can offer flights to destinations such as Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa


Rica from Europe,


putting us in a great competitive position,” Idoia Martinez points out.


VIIA Britanica ready to roll


A new multimodal option from Spain to the UK will be available from 12


January next year


when truck-train specialist VIIA launches its new VIIA Britanica service between Le Boulou and Calais on 12 January next year. The service will start with two trains per day during the first three months, but then increasing to four trains per day. Le Boulou


is on the French-Spanish border, not far from Barcelona. According to a VIIA


spokeswoman, the project has not been affected by the recent troubles in Calais. The new railway terminal within the Port of Calais is finished and will be inaugurated on 23 October. A new zone had been created within the port to allow trains


from Le Boulou to enter directly, where all the security controls will be done before the transfer of trailers towards their final destination. As announced at Multimodal


last year, VIIA Britanica will be open to all types of trailers. As a ro-ro rather than a crane- operated service, there is no need for strengthened trailers.


trade from Spain at this time and has seen strong performance for its groupage services from the Castellon, Valencia and Alicante areas. “Today we are possibly known as one of the key logistic operators from these areas to the UK.” Sadly, though, far too much


of this trade is by road whereas FFG’s normal strategy is to use intermodal operations. Graham Martin says that the Ford train which operates between Valencia and London via the Channel Tunnel has been a disappointment due to its inflexibility in payloads, old equipment and all too oſten unreliable timetables. While the


train is open to third party traffic the amount of space available depends on how much of the train Ford wants and this varies. It also stops at Christmas and for about four weeks over the summer. Graham Martin explains: “We


used to support this frequently but found a more reliable option from Tarragona although this uses a part road operation. The planned upgrade of the rail line between Barcelona and Valencia is taking too long to complete and remains a hindrance to driving forward our plans to provide door to door operations by rail as well as road with equal reliability and cost effectiveness for all UK. “We still manage to use the


rail path but this is nowadays just geared to our direct services into Scotland and the North East of England. The recent migrant issues at the tunnel are also affecting reliability and safety and until we gain more confidence, we are maintaining just a skeleton


service on this operation at the moment.” Iberia has always been well


served by sea routes into the UK and FFG uses them all including services directly from Valencia, Bilbao and Vigo for its full loads by container into Felixstowe, Thamesport, Bristol, Liverpool and Scotland. FFG is currently reviewing the operation between Castellon and Liverpool and Cardiff, due to the greater competition on full containers. Graham Martin concludes:” Our


next move is likely to be Portugal for groupage where we are in advanced discussions with a key Portuguese groupage partner. Our intentions are to mirror our Italian and Spanish operations by offering both road and fast intermodal operations into the UK. We are undergoing trials on the CLDN ferry service at this time and we expect to become a significant operator from Portugal in the next few months.”


Daily Barca run in Europa’s sights


UK groupage specialist Europa currently runs daily services to and from Madrid and has recently upgraded those to Irun from twice-weekly to daily as well. There are also Barcelona services two or three times a week; operations director Dan Cook also has aspirations to increase these to daily, probably during the second half of next year. Portugal is general serviced via


either Madrid or Irun, though with the occasional direct trailer. The plan here is to get fully structured twice-weekly direct services at some stage. The concentration of the


international operation in the UK on a single hub at Dartford has facilitated the increase in frequency and has helped build up sufficient critical mass to justify daily services. Partner in Spain is Transnat


which, like Europa itself, is a privately owned groupage and forwarding operator. “I would say we have all points covered in Iberia,” says Dan Cook - “Certainly all the main industrial areas.” Spain is a big country, and it


takes between 24 to 72 hours to get consignments to every corner, both because of distance and, in some cases, the time it takes


Transnat to build up enough consignments to justify a trip to the more remote areas. Outside the handful of big cities, Spain is largely a rural and remote country. Cook adds that Europa almost


always favours operating via the Channel Tunnel, rather than the direct ferries that ply between Portsmouth and other south coast ports and northern Spain. “Those crossings are very long, and as they’re principally aimed at tourists, the frequency is totally different in summer compared with the winter, so you can’t really structure anything around them.”


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