Zurich/Washington, March 26, 2010 – Swissport Cargo Services North America has concluded or renewed a number of cargo handling agreements commencing in the first half of 2010. The new accords are an impressive sign of business recovery and growth.
The air transport sector is slowly recovering from its crisis year of 2009. The recent improvements have been particularly strong in the cargo sector, on all its various fronts. The massive efforts made by all partners and in all markets here seem to be finally paying off, and are being increasingly reflected in concrete results.
Swissport Cargo Services North America is leading the way. The unit has recently concluded major new cargo handling agreements with British Airways at Los Angeles and Boston, Air Canada at Denver, Aer Lingus at Washington-Dulles and Air New Zealand and LAN Cargo at San Francisco. The unit also renewed its existing accord with Continental Airlines at Toronto Airport.
“We’re delighted with these agreements,” says Jerry Finn, Vice President Sales & Marketing for Swissport Cargo Services in North America. “And we look forward to providing quality cargo handling solutions for our new customers in accordance with our reputation as the leading supplier of global ground services.”
Most of the contracts concluded are for at least three years, and their total (annual) business volume amounts to some 50,000 tons. Their conclusion is all the more encouraging in that they represent key accounts at major airport locations where Swissport’s competitors are also extremely active.
“We’ve been working hard on various further enhancements to our handling product over the past few months,” explains John Batten, executive vice president cargo services at Swissport International. “We’ve improved the monitoring of our own activities with key performance indicators; we’ve optimized our structures and processes to give ourselves greater flexibility; we’ve achieved more standardization and product consistency; we’ve enhanced our speed of response, with the active involvement of all our management corps; and we’ve made further improvements in our day-to-day operations. We look forward to continuing to pursue all these initiatives, in the interests of our partners and ourselves; and I’m sure our customers will clearly feel the benefit throughout our daily business.”
