When minimum becomes maximum
Athens International airport is set to become the first European station to formally incorporate minimum service delivery standards in its freight and mail handling agreements.

The finalised document was agreed jointly with the freight and mail handlers and in collaboration with the airport’s Cargo Community Committee, following two years of monitoring work. The new handling agreements, to include the MSDS, which will apply to cargo handling services for inbound freight and mail, were signed during March following the successful conclusion of the tender process for the award of the restricted access cargo handling rights at the station.

The airport presented the awards for “Best Document Handling”, “Best Physical Handling”, “Most Consistent Performance” and “Outstanding Performance” to its cargo handlers Swissport Hellas Cargo, Goldair Handling, Olympic Airways Services and European Air Transport respectively, all of whose contracts have been renewed until 2015. The awards, in addition to rewarding the cargo handlers for their respective area of excellence, also benefited them collectively in respect of their participation and co-operation in the process leading to the establishment and application of the MSDS.

Athens International was also the recipient of a prestigious “ACE Award for Excellence” in the European Airport Category of 499,999 or less tons per year. According to the results of the fourth annual “Air Cargo Excellence” survey, the airport achieved superior ratings from its cargo customers (airlines and airfreight forwarders) in the key areas of measurement, namely performance, value, facilities and regulatory operations.

Now in its eighth year of operation, Athens International goes from strength to strength. Alexis Sioris, Manager for Cargo Development, comments: “Clearly, our airport is passenger-driven and as such has won many industry awards. But parallel to this the cargo division has been steadily growing and shaping itself into a competitive and efficient international facility. We attach much importance to our four handlers. We are delighted with the commitment to quality as expressed in these awards.

“As the cargo management we concentrate our efforts on assuring the quality, safety, security and overall competitiveness for the benefit of airlines, forwarders and shippers. Because the Greek economy is quite small, our aim is to expand the transit cargo traffic for which we are ideally and uniquely positioned. The Sea Air business, which we started in 2006, is moving slowly and we have had good results, especially in moving cargo to the US using belly hold cargo capacity. There is a substantial market for this from the region. We invented SEANAIRGY, which expresses the philosophy of our new project. Within this, we have established a good relationship with the Seaport as well as with the port and airport Customs. The synergy is also working between the airport community and within our own management team. We are also financing the interim transport between Pireaus and the airport as an investment in the future.”