SHORT SHOTS

FedEx gains first Cuban cargo traffic rights
Five weekly cargo frequencies have been awarded to FedEx by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) for cargo services between Miami and the Cuban city of Matanzas.
Operations will take place from Mondays to Fridays and the granting is effective as of July 15th and runs for a period of two years.
Other U.S. carriers have not objected to FedEx gaining the first ever U.S./Cuba air cargo rights.
Although the traffic rights are valid as of 15. July, FedEx announced that they will only start services as from January 15th 2017. The agreement stipulates that if FedEx does not operate the service for a period of 90 days or if it does not start services within 90 days of the January 15th launch date, then the allocated rights will expire.

Schiphol Cargo shows strong mid-year figures
The 2016 January to June cargo figures at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport have shown a strong upward trend.
A total of 796,801 tonnes of air freight passed through the airport in the first six months, a 1.6% year-on-year growth.
The month of April was particularly strong with almost 138,000 tonnes which indicates a 6.8% increase on 2015. June cargo throughput rose by 2.5% to 135,528 tonnes.
Freighter movements through the airport also increased from 8,218 in 2015 to 8,801 movements this year, which was a 7.1% increase.
Interestingly, the European freight showed the best results for the airport, rising by 41.7% to 90,991 tonnes from 64,197 tonnes in the same period in 2015.

CargoLogicAir gets U.S. exemption
The UK-based Volga-Dnepr Airlines Group daughter, CargoLogicAir, has been granted an exemption authority by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) whilst still not having reached a decision on the airline’s Foreign Air Carriers Permit.
CargoLogicAir had placed a request with the DoT for permission to operate scheduled and charter cargo flights for mail and freight, “from any point or points behind any EU member state to the United States and beyond, whereby intermediate stops as shown in the U.S.-EU Open Skies Treaty could be used.”
The carrier plans flights from its UK-base at Stansted Airport to and from cities within the USA.
It now has two Boeing freighters in service and when the third joins in early 2017, flights to Hong Kong are also planned.

DHL Express to get four A330-300P2F freighters
Airbus Industries and the German aircraft conversion specialists, Elbe Flugzeugwerke (EFW), have signed an agreement with DHL Express to deliver four A330-300 converted passenger to freight (P2F) aircraft to supplement DHL’s cargo fleet.
The aircraft will be converted at EFW’s factory in Dresden and the first one, reported to originate from Malaysian Airlines, is slotted for delivery by the end of 2017.
The A330-300 P2F can carry up to 61 tonnes of cargo spread over 26 pallet positions.

Super Hercules gets first civil aviation order
The venerable Lockheed Martin C-130J Hercules aircraft is a well-known sight on military airfields throughout the world.
The Palmdale, USA-based aircraft manufacturer has now signed an agreement with Bravo Industries to build and deliver ten LM-100J civil certified versions of this aircraft for commercial cargo flights.
Bravo Industries, which focuses its operation in and around Brazil is a defense and logistics set-up and they intend to operate the new civilian Hercules freighters within Brazil.
The United States FAA authority still has to certify the aircraft, but first deliveries are expected in 2018.

Star Air Cargo adds a B737-300F to the fleet
The South Africa-based Star Air Cargo Pty Ltd which leases Boeing 737 passenger aircraft to various regional African carriers has now added a B737-300F to its fleet and it is expected that it will be leased out to one of its present customers.
Star Air has contracts for lease aircraft with carriers such as Rwandair, Air Botswana, Air Malawi, LAM Mozambique and others and has been in business since 1996.
The company, which has a total of five B737s in its fleet also has its own maintenance facilities at Johannesburg International Airport.

John Mc Donagh

Four Tigers chose Cargolux for flying to Hanoi
Four tigers belonging to the rare Indochinese species named Ho Dong Duong in Vietnam traveled from their origin in the Czech Republic to Hanoi to become part of a breeding program initiated and supervised by a local zoo. It’s a challenging mission since less than 20 of this species are registered in captivity worldwide with only around 600 still living in the wilderness of Southeast Asia.
The transport is part of a global effort to ensure the survival of this highly endangered species whose natural Indochinese habitat is rapidly shrinking due to growing urbanization and expanding agriculture.
Cargolux is no surprised that the predators opted for flying with them. Their 747 freighters “offer an ideal conditioned environment for the animals, thanks to ventilation and temperature control systems, including state-of-the-art HVAC systems, that duplicate any natural environment from 4˚C to 29˚C,” reads a Cargolux release.
The four female and one male “passengers” arrived safely in Hanoi.