As trade between Europe, Asia and the rest of the world continues to grow, the biggest competitive threats to Schiphol Airport are the major airports in Europe, their capacity for growth and cost of airline operations, according to a senior Schiphol executive.
Franz van Hessen, marketing manager cargo of Amsterdam Airport Schiphol says that Schiphol’s strategy is, therefore, focused on making sure that it maintains 24 hours a day/7 days a week slots for freighter operations to and from all major economic areas in the world.
“Regarding our cargo transfer position, we focus on the timely developments of cargo/logistics areas and the location of a broad variety of logistics companies, including 3 & 4 PLs, in those areas,” van Hessen says.
“Also a lot of effort is put in the development of innovative transfer processes whereby cost of operations for our industry partners and airline visit cost can be controlled at an acceptable level.” He says examples of such innovative processes are the integration of security and customs checks in one process step via E-freight and radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.
As part of its development, Schiphol airport has this year added two additional full freighter stands, making a total of 23, and 23,000 sqm of first line ramp-connected handling sheds.
Asked about future developments, van Hessen says that the next five years will be focused on the development of three large areas of more than 300 hectares in total for logistics companies.
In addition, within the next two years, Schiphol has concrete plans to develop warehouses for major global forwarders, with direct ramp access thus enabling swifter and high security transfer of cargo, he adds.
Van Hessen says there is a spatial planning reservation for the parallel runway 06-24, which when completed, will enable Schiphol to offer a dependable level of capacity at all times.
Schiphol airport, he says, registered more than 1.3 million kilo tonnes year-to- date up to October, up 5 per cent year-on-year. Of the figure, 44 per cent of this volume is related to Asian imports and exports.
He contends that overall, Amsterdam performs above the European growth level, boosted by the above average growth and strength of the Dutch import position.
This is because half of all European distribution centres are located in the Netherlands, the strength of the AMS air cargo marketplace and the country’s strong full freighter hub. “Sixty per cent of our cargo is fl own on full freighters, and the percentage does not even include KLM’s combi aircraft,” van Hessen says.
As the third largest airport in Europe in terms of cargo volume, Schiphol’s midterm growth is projected at 5.3 per cent, and long term 4.8 per cent. “Both figures are above our projections for European growth,” he says. “We will maintain our Asian market share and follow the growth in China.”
Van Hessen says Amsterdam has a strong position in this market, among others, due to the fact that both Great Wall Airlines and Jade Cargo have established their European hub in Amsterdam. Also the developments in the cooperation between KLM and China Southern will help A full 60 per cent of Schiphol’s cargo throughput is fl own on full freighters. further strengthen this position.