Facing seven challenging years
Team effort at Athens airport will ensure success. Cargo activities at Athens International Airport (AIA) seem to be regaining their momentum. According to Lina Palli, the gateway’s senior account supervisor for cargo development, the year-to-date cargo volume has recorded growth of more than 10% compared to the pre-Covid-19 year of 2019. One decisive factor for further growth is the level of cooperation exhibited by AIA’s local cargo community.
The 2022 aviation year in Athens has been characterised by the intensification of airlines’ passenger flight schedules. The 43 new routes established this year provided the cargo sector with much-needed capacities.
Although this growth went hand in hand with operational challenges, AIA’s cargo community –especially its two cargo handlers, Goldair Handling (GH) and Skyserv Handling Services (SHS) – managed to cope with the increased traffic, and simultaneously maintain all jointly agreed cargo quality standards.
During this demanding period, AIA concluded a European Union tender for the award of ground-handling rights, including cargo handling, amongst others. Both current handlers were re-awarded their freight and postal service handling rights and are thus now busy planning ahead for the next seven challenging years.
Pioneers for pharmaceuticals logistics
Andreas Togias, Goldair Handling’s cargo services manager, explained that GH was reinforced during this uncertain post-pandemic period. Its local partners recognised GH’s pioneering investments. These included completing Iata CEIV Pharma certification, new state-of-the-art cool chambers for pharmaceutical products, fully-electrical ground-handling equipment, renovating the infrastructure of its existing cool chambers and developing its own WMS.
Since 2018 GH has recorded consecutive growth of almost 4% every year for both exports and imports. This performance is attributable mainly to transit shipments bound for the USA. They originate in southeastern Europe and transit AIA by air or road.
The increase in international flights allowed GH to offer better and more efficient solutions and also to become a transit hub for commodities such as pharmaceutical products and tobacco. Togias believes that “sustainability, hard work, progressive thinking, an eco-protective footprint and innovation are all part of the mixture of ingredients necessary for a fertile future.”
Close collaboration of the essence
Harris Geroukis, the freight and mail operations manager of Skyserv Handling Services, states something similar – namely that, following its participation in the recent ground-handling tender, SHS will now continue to strengthen its relationship with AIA. It will thus continue to participate in the airport’s projects and activities over the coming seven years.
Skyserv recently adapted its operations to support its clients to achieve their ambitions in terms of time, cost and quality criteria, by setting up strategies and action plans based on the abnormal conditions faced during the last few years of operations.
Moreover, to ensure smooth operations, Skyserv collaborates closely with AIA on joint projects, and also successfully supports business by attracting, and coordinating, road feeder services from Central, Eastern and even Northern Europe. It also serves as a transit cargo hub for shipments by US-based airfreight carriers.
As direct flights to the US will continue after the summer season, Skyserv has already increased the export shipments carried by US carriers by more than 35% compared to 2019. It now anticipates even better results by the end of 2022.
Geroukis reminds us that “going green is an ongoing strategy for us looking forward. Together with AIA we want to contribute to the rather broad efforts being made by the aviation industry to create a more sustainable future.”
The announcement pleased Lina Palli – in the face of the challenges presented by the goals of further facilitating cargo flows through the airport, enhancing quality standards and attracting additional transit flows. “Our ‘one-team’ approach will be our vehicle to success – as has always been the case in the past,” Palli closes.