Schiphol Cargo is focusing on pharma and e-commerce as volumes grew 8.7 per cent in the first half of 2017 to 866,713 tonnes.
Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, which is Europe’s third busiest cargo hub, welcomed an additional 153 freighter flights in the period, and handled 148,765 tonnes of cargo in June alone, a 9.8 per cent year-on-year increase.
Schiphol head of cargo, Jonas van Stekelenburg says the Schiphol Cargo Community has worked on a series of new initiatives to improve safety and efficient of cargo operations, and the first half performance is the result of this collaboration.
He says: “We are pleased that our continued focus on developing innovative solutions, such as our Compliance Checker and the Milkrun, for our growing base of e-Commerce and pharma customers has helped to deliver strong growth in the first half of the year.”
He adds: “Our commitment to quality initiatives, such as the Pharma Gateway Amsterdam programme, has ensured that Schiphol remains one of the fastest growing cargo hubs in Europe.”
Schiphol’s new Compliance Checker, launched in May, speeds up cargo flow by detecting data errors and Customs compliance issues in air waybills will help boost e-commerce flows through the hub.
The community has secured a €1 million grant to start developing a Pharma Incursion Alerter, an early warning system for shippers, and a pilot phase for the scheme is being planned.
Milkrun partners have established a programme of sharing transportation, single deliveries from handling agents are delivered to multiple forwarder facilities while reducing CO2 emissions and cutting truck queues.
Milkrun Working Group chairman, Pieter-Bas Braam says: “I am proud that the Milkrun project has become a fully operational scheme, which is already benefitting the Cargo Community at Schiphol.”
Across the different regions, Far East outbound traffic was up 12.2 per cent in the first half to 154,866 tonnes, and inbound increased 8.3 per cent to 149,836 tonnes.
Inbound from Europe was up 29.1 per cent to 60,320 tonnes and outbound by 39.2 per cent to 61,641 tonnes.
Flowers drove inbound trade from Latin America, increasing 31.4 per cent to 59,817 tonnes though exports were down 6.3 per cent to 35,275 tonnes.
Imports from Africa declined 3.5 per cent to 59,409 tonnes and exports were down 15.3 per cent to 24,902 tonnes.
North American imports were down 6.3 per cent to 72,739 tonnes while exports were up 10.5 per cent to 82,379 tonnes.
Inbound cargo from the Middle East declined 4.4 per cent to 43,557 tonnes though outbound rose seven per cent to 61,973 tonnes.
