June 2015

After a good 2014, Brussels Airport started 2015 with strong growth in Q1. Also April and May showed growth again, resulting in a 8.4% increase in cargo volumes for the first 5 months of the year. Forecasts for Brussels Airport look positive for the next few months, although overall European volumes are struggling. 

A lot of hard work has been done, so we hope all of you can look forward to a nice and well deserved summer break with your family and friends in the coming weeks and months.

This year, BRUcargo had to defend its title of Best Airport of the Year for the very first time. The title, awarded at the World Air Cargo Awards 2015 in Munich, was granted to the airport that has proven to be committed to cargo development, to have a large availability of cargo facilities and efficient cargo operations.

Brussels Airport is proud that the efforts, in collaboration with the entire Cargo Community, to improve and further develop BRUcargo are not going unnoticed and that is was rewarded for the second time in a row with this prestigious award. Investing in training programs, attracting new airlines, setting the new standards for pharmaceutical airfreight and bringing the community into the cloud, are only some of the recent achievements. As they have proven to be the right strategic choice, other projects and initiatives will be launched in the coming months. 

It was a memorable moment when on Sunday, the 31st of May, the wheels of flight KFA 204 touched ground at Brussels Airport. 

Previously specialized in express business throughout Canada, KF Aerospace decided on another strategy, joining the Air Cargo industry. Being a reliable and punctual carrier and offering four-weekly freighter frequencies on their maiden route YYZ – BRU – YYZ, KF Aerospace is determined to win its place in the Air Cargo market and gain the confidence of shippers and forwarding agents. KF Aerospace will develop BRU as the hub for intra-European connections and also intends to leverage Brussels Airport’s extensive network into Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Right after the aircraft passed the airport’s fire brigade welcoming arch, the crew was treated with true Belgian hospitality.

How can an airport cargo community find new staff that is better trained for the job? By working together with schools and universities. In the past years, Brussels Airport already took several initiatives, including the creation of the Airport House which groups several stakeholders and organisations linked to helping people finding a job at the airport.

This new initiative was started by CTC (Cargo Training Center) and goes one step further: together with Thomas More College, a special curriculum ‘air cargo logistics’ will be developed as of the next school year, starting in September. CTC will support Thomas More both by developing the curriculum and by providing teachers that know the business.

As an air cargo community, we will work together for site visits, guided tours, working experiences and we can benefit by working together on business cases and case studies.

The new curriculum and cooperation between industry and education should lead to a better promotion of the wide variety of interesting jobs that are available in the fascinating world of aviation and logistics. In return, we can welcome better trained and informed new employees.

The second wave of pharma certification at Brussels Airport is on schedule. The pharma experts of nine BRUcargo based companies, including some of the big forwarders and several trucking companies are attending the dedicated training cycle of the CEIV pharma program. Additionally Brussels Airport has invited FAGG - the Belgian regulator - and pharma shippers to join the course.

This will enhance interactive discussions and the exchange of ideas and best practices to improve the handling of temperature controlled shipments at BRU. As of next month the actual assessment audits will take place, bringing all participants to the same high quality level, contributing to reliable and transparent handling of pharma shipments.

Meanwhile, the Brussels cargo community is gathering around its new pharma innovation project, in order to further enhance its position as the preferred European pharma gateway. BRUcargo based handling agents, forwarders, airlines and truckers are working together in this improvement program.

After having consulted the shippers in the BRUcargo pharma forum to get a clear understanding of their expectations, the scope is being defined:

1. Alignment of the process from shipper, forwarder, airline, handler on an operational level, leading to a uniform and robust benchmark pharma procedure at Brussels Airport.
2. Creation of real-time and full transparency in the cool chain with regards to timing, temperature and location of shipments from delivery at the airport until departure of the aircraft.
3. Conditioned storage and transport both in warehouses and on airside, with clearly defined and guaranteed temperature ranges.

An ambitious agenda for the BRUcargo community... But at BRU, we prefer to raise the pharma handling standard instead of meeting the current accepted average.

In building 706, the offices have now partially been renovated, floors 5 and 7 are totally refurbished and fully occupied. The refurbishment of the 6th floor will be finished within the next few weeks. We are also very pleased to announce that a new catering company has been selected, which will start operating a new restaurant and bar in building 706 in 2016.

Buildings 734 and 739 are currently also being refurbished, and within a few weeks Gosselin (today tenant in building 739) will move to building 734 while tenants Yusen Logistics and Yamato Europe (tenants in building 734) will move to building 739.

New developments

We are very pleased to announce the delivery of a new, multi-tenant building (729) to BDP International and SGS, at the end of April 2015. Next month, also Kintetsu World Express will move into this building, which has been developed by Futurn Air NV. Furthermore, the developer of building 738 (Brucor) expects to start construction later this year for two future tenants.

On the other hand, Brussels Airport has demolished the old buildings on the 732 and 742 plots, and is now negotiating with future investors and tenants for a new destination for these plots.

New developments will be tendered to real estate investors before the end of the year but more news about this will follow in one of our next newsletters.

New Leases

In building 705 we saw new leases for G4S Cargo Solutions, LVW Transport and DAS Logistics. In building 706 we welcomed Euro Cargo Aviation, LVW Transport and Nallian. Other new leases were Dachser and Sovereign Speed in building 740, ACS Belgium in building 720 and Transport Vandervlies and Loca Fast on plot 745.

Vacancies

At the moment, there is vacant space available in building 705 (600 m² warehouse), building 740 (50 m² office) and building 706 (different spaces from 22 m² up to 100 m²). Contact us for more information!