Starting this September and throughout 2020 the airports of Amsterdam and Atlanta will be laying the foundations of a trade and logistics corridor. A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed at Air Cargo Europe in Munich.
The final aim is to establish data exchange between both airports and to extend the benefits of the Amsterdam Cargo Community System Cargonaut to ATL. Cargonaut supports Amsterdam’s Smart Cargo Mainport Programme (SCMP), which is rolling out at the airport. “This is all about innovation and it cannot be done without going digital,” said Bart Pouwels, Head of Cargo Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.
Cargonaut’s CEO Nanne Onland added that by building the processes there is lots of information that parties want to share in the most efficient way. Amongst other initiatives the SCMP is working
on optimal land-side pickup and delivery, to avoid traffic jams and unnecessary waiting times in trucking operations.
Other tools are Automated Nomination to utilise smart software algorithms to speed up the nomination of cargo pallets to their next destination and the Compliance Checker to facilitate customs
and border security.
Cargo business upgrade for ATL
For ATL the MoU will offer the opportunity to lift its standards in the cargo business, said Elliott Paige, Director of Air Service Development. “We will build our own air cargo network fashioned
on the Dutch model, including the first next-generation Cargo Community System in the U.S.
Mr Paige remarked that, from ATL, about 80% of the North American market is deliverable.
The MoU is the result of some 2 years of negotiations between the government of the Netherlands and Atlanta’s city fathers. On the technological side ATL is working with Indian provider Kale
Logistics Solutions. “The next-generation platform goes beyond the traditional message exchange system and aims to integrate the whole air freight supply chain from exporter to importer, thereby
creating efficiency, transparency and security in the supply chain,” said Kale’s Director Amar More.
Learning from Mumbai corridor
Kale is no stranger to the Amsterdam cargo community. Since early 2018 the provider has been supporting the airport in setting up a trade corridor with Mumbai. In the AMS-BOM corridor the crux of
the matter is in connecting the CCS of both airports.
To ensure mutual trust the data corridor is based on iSHARE, the Dutch government’s Logistics Top Sector initiative to stimulate data-sharing. It consists of a uniform set of agreements or
schemes, which enables those in the sector to share logistics data with everyone else – including with partners further upstream or downstream in the chain – in a simple and controlled way.
The AMS-BOM corridor is not yet operational, Mr Onland admitted. “Even so, we will be able to duplicate what we learned into the AMS-ATL corridor.”
Atlanta grants tender to WFS
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport recently issued a tender for the operation of their new Cargo Building C, which is seen as being an important part of the airport’s plans to give carriers more
cargo handling space at the airport in the future.
They announced at the ACE in Munich that they have awarded the operation of the terminal to Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) who will take control of the 700,000 square foot facility on a
long-term lease basis. This means that Atlanta will become a new cargo operations gateway for WFS who have invested heavily recently in expanding their cargo handling facilities in Brussels,
Copenhagen, Paris, New York JFK and Madrid.
Marcel Schoeters / John Mc Donagh