News in Brief

Business Buzz

¦ WorkBridge, a resource management solution provider, announced that it has seen impressive growth over the last 24 months in the Middle and Far East sectors of their business as ground handlers and airport companies look to enhance efficiency and reduce cost. As part of their strategy for global expansion and after recent opening of offices in the UK and South Africa, WorkBridge has now opened the first of its Asian offices in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The opening was celebrated Feb. 2 with many representatives from regional customers and partners.

¦ Siemens announced it was awarded a $28 million contract from Turner Construction Company to design, supply and install a baggage handling system as part of the renovation of Terminal 2 at San Francisco International Airport. The contract also includes the operation and maintenance of the system for two years.

¦ DEUTZ AG announced it will be bundling its exhaust gas technology expertise in the “EAT – Exhaust After-treatment” product line. The company said the goal is to promote customer-oriented solutions for the system integration of engine/exhaust technology quickly and efficiently, opening up additional growth opportunities by marketing a variety of EAT modules and systems as well as EAT development and application services.

¦ Swissport International reported favorable business trends for 2008 despite a difficult market environment. The world ground handling leader raised its total operating revenue 8.6 percent to EUR 1202 million.

¦ Cavotec MSL announced that it has recently won a string of orders to supply ground support equipment to several major airports around the world. These orders are worth about EUR 3.6 million. These deals include three types of Cavotec pit supply systems for Manchester Airport, the UK’s largest airport outside London. The systems will serve Manchester’s A380 stand. Similarly, Cavotec is supplying more than 30 pop-up pits for the new international airport in Doha, Qatar, and vault systems to India’s New Delhi airport.

¦ Grand Bending, a division of Morris Coupling Company, announced the company’s complete line of custom short radius bends and assemblies featuring compound bends, welded fabrications, expansions and swaging with applications in customized exhaust systems for off-road vehicles, high-performance exhaust systems, heat exchangers and pneumatic and vacuum conveying components.

¦ Tronair announced that it has opened a sales office in China. Sales representative Eric Guo, China sales manager, is located in Xiamen, China, and is responsible for growing the Asian market. The new office, along with the company’s existing office in Thailand, will serve from Korea, to China, Australia and India.

¦ The International Air Transport Association announced a revised outlook for the global air transport industry with losses of $4.7 billion in 2009. The figures are significantly worse than IATA’s December forecast for a $2.5 billion loss in 2009, reflecting the rapid deterioration of the global economic conditions, according to IATA.

Partnerships/Acquisitions/Contracts

¦ Swissport International and Virgin Atlantic Airways have concluded a cooperation agreement covering the handling of Virgin Atlantic’s cargo Europewide. The accord, which extends to up to 40 destinations and will enter into effect May 1, further underlines the growing importance and appeal to all sides of multinational network agreements within the ground handling industry, according to Swissport.

¦ Aviapartner Handling announced a contract to handle Malaysia Airlines’ daily flight in Amsterdam, operated with B747 or B777 aircraft. The contract covers full handling services which include passenger services (check-in, boarding assistance, baggage tracing services), aircraft handling (loading and unloading of baggage, ground power, cleaning, water and sanitary services, baggage transfer to terminal, headset, pushback and towing), and traffic operations (flight documentation, communication, crew briefing, and flight supervision). Malaysia Airlines already is Aviapartner’s customer in Amsterdam for cargo-handling services.