Air Canada obtained CEIV Live
Animals accreditation last year
of earlier deals between the
EU and South Korea and Japan
will continue to be felt over
the next few years.
New Turkish hub
The gloomy outlook
notwithstanding, it’s not
every year that a completely
new big city airport opens
anywhere in the world – but
in February, the new Istanbul
airport handled its first cargo,
and national carrier Turkish
Airlines moved all its flights
from the old Ataturk airport
during the year.
But elsewhere in the world,
major new airport schemes
failed to even get off the
ground. London Heathrow’s
third runway was subject to yet
another government enquiry
while Mexico’s new President
called for a referendum on
whether to go ahead with a
new airport for the country’s
capital.
There were, though,
a number of important
cargo hub developments.
In Hungary, where the
government sees air cargo as
a priority sector, Budapest’s
purpose-built Cargo City
opened this autumn.
Earlier in the year, in
Ethiopia (another country
where the government clearly
recognises the importance of
air freight), Addis Ababa also
opened the doors of its brand
new terminal, billed as the
biggest in Africa.
Other openings in and
around established gateways
included DHL’s new Hanover
hub lying close to the city’s
airport, in September. Shortly
afterwards, the integrator
announced a concession
agreement with Incheon
airport in South Korea for a
€131m expansion plan.
Furthermore, Leipzig airport
in June revealed a US$500m
expansion project, including a
second Cargo City.
The trend for large scale
expansion in less developed
countries and near-stasis at
the busier major hub airports
continued. The previous
year, one of Europe’s premier
airfreight gateways, Amsterdam
Schiphol, had been forced
to curtail its full freighter
operations because of slot
allocation problems, leading
to a 9.2% decline in freight in
the first six months of 2019,
despite a small increase in its
bellyhold traffic.
So, have major gateways
in Europe perhaps reached
the limits of volume growth?
Schiphol certainly says that its
emphasis is now on developing
high-paying traffic like pharma
and e-commerce rather than
chasing volume.
The airfreight industry has
seemingly also decided that
its future lies in specialised
products and services and
during 2018-19 the industry
moved further along that road.
In the second half of 2018, Air
The latter part of the year has seen
Russian cargo carriers suffering
Canada became the first airline to receive CEIV certification for
live animals, after completing a pilot programme.
The Live Animals standard was the second in IATA’s
programme to develop CEIV standards for a number of specialised
areas of the cargo business, the first having been for pharma. A
new CEIV Fresh standard, for fruit, vegetables and other produce,
was set to follow in 2019.
Ditching the paperwork
The industry continued its fitful progress towards becoming
properly electronic during the year. IATA figures suggest that
penetration of the electronic air waybill – one of the buildingblocks
of digitisation – was still hovering at, or just above, the
50% level, although individual carriers claimed rather higher
rates, such as Lufthansa’s 74%.
The AWB isn’t the only piece of paper clogging up the system,
of course. In September 2018, Lufthansa became the first airline
to ship goods under an electronic Dangerous Goods Declaration
while Air France KLM Cargo reported in March 2019 that it
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