Barcelona’s El Prat airport, which lies some 12km south-west of the city, has been following a positive growth trend and will hopefully continue to do so, Anaïs Fábregas Almirall, communication & corporate image manager of CentrosLogÃsticos Aeroportuarios, S.A. says.
While he declined to provide any forecasts with regards to the airport’s growth in the near term, Fábregas Almirall said between January and October this year, Barcelona airport handled 80,195 tonnes of cargo, which represents a 6.8 per cent growth compared with the same period last year.
"As (our) figures can prove, the number of airlines starting direct freighter services to and from Barcelona, and the contribution of the Air Route Development Committee in promoting Barcelona Airport has really brought good results," he said.
Singapore Airlines is the latest airline to boost its three weekly flights, first launched between Barcelona and Singapore in July 2006, to a daily flight. The new daily flight means doubling the capacity, both in passengers and cargo, for this route between Barcelona and Asia. The airline is using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft for the service and plans to suppress the technical stop in Milan Malpensa, so that the route becomes a fully direct air link.
In November, Emirates Sky Cargo also launched a new Dubai – Barcelona – Mexico DF service with the single weekly cargo flight operated with a Boeing 747F.
Prior to that, a cargo seminar was organised in Hong Kong this past October by the Barcelona Air Route Development Committee (BARDC), the Generalitat de Catalunya, the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and Clasa, in collaboration with Cargolux, which was attended by more than 60 representatives of the Hong Kong cargo community.
At the seminar, Cargolux announced that it will increase its presence at Barcelona’s Airport by increasing its two frequencies per week to three. The airline, which flies between Barcelona and Hong Kong, via the airline’s hub in Luxembourg, uses a Boeing 747 aircraft on the route.
Barcelona airport, which is actively promoting its services to woo airlines in Asia to its facilities, is optimistic of attracting Japanese airlines soon.
Clasa is a company that belongs 100 per cent to Aena (Spanish Airports and Air Navigation) which promotes, constructs and manages Air Cargo Centres in all the airports from Aena’s network.
Barcelona Air Cargo Centre, the second most important of all of Aena’s air cargo centres, is located on one of the biggest intermodal logistics platforms and serves one of the fastest growing industrial and consumer European hinterlands, according to Almirall. It is currently situated on a 40 hectares site and handles cargo for two separate groups. The first group it serves is the handling operators, and the second group is other logistics companies.
There are more than 130 companies operating in its facilities and in order to meet the growing demand, it is under permanent development, Almirall said, adding that currently a site of more than 75,000 sqm is under construction between existing warehouses.