Groundforce has just gained five new ground handling contracts with the airlines Clickair, Emirates, LatCharter, AtlasJet and Copa Airlines.
The contract established with Clickair, a Spanish low-cost company which recently began its operation to Portugal, covers the provision of all ramp handling services up to March 2009 at Lisbon and Porto airports.
In Spain, Groundforce is also responsible for providing ramp handling services to Emirates airline at Barcelona airport up to the 9th of November 2009, as per the contract signed by this airline.
In turn, LatCharter signed a contract with Groundforce Morocco, valid up to the 31st of October 2009, which covers the provision of full handling services at the Moroccan airports of Fez, Casablanca, Marrakech and Agadir.
Another contract was also established for these 4 airports, with the airline AtlasJet, providing for full handling service on an ad-hoc basis for a period of 2 years.
The contract signed with Copa Airlines is valid for 3 years and allows for the provision of ramp handling services by Groundforce Mexico at Mexico City Airport.
With its head office in Barcelona, Clickair is a low-cost airline owned by Iberia and another four companies. At this early stage Clickair operates with a fleet of three A320 aeroplanes, offering domestic flights between Barcelona, Seville and Malaga. Besides this, the airline will cover European routes such as Lisbon, Porto, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Geneva, Zurich, Basle, Dublin, Moscow, Munich, Berlin, Prague, Paris, Rome and London. The company’s objective is to position itself amongst the three main low cost European air transporters, as well as to increase its fleet.
The Emirates airline was founded in Dubai in 1985 and operates flights to over 80 destinations throughout the world. As from November, this airline expects to operate two cargo flights per week to Barcelona, with A310F craft.
Coming from Latvia, the airline LatCharter was founded in 1992 and began operating the following year. With a fleet made up from two Airbus A320, it currently makes ad-hoc charter flights from Riga International Airport to destinations such as Tenerife, Hurghada, Sharm EL-Sheikh, Dubai, Antalya, Bodrum, Dalaman and Heraklion. At the end of September LatCharter began operating flights to Morocco, more concretely to Agadir, to where it intends to have one flight per week.
With its head office in Istanbul, the Turkish airline AtlasJet was founded in 2001, currently operating with a fleet comprising 17 aeroplanes. It offers domestic flights to the main Turkish cities as well as flights to various cities in countries such as Spain, Germany, Holland, Kazakhstan, France, Italy, The Czech Republic, Hungary, Denmark, Egypt, The United Arab Emirates and Morocco.
Copa Airlines, in turn, operates since 1947 out of the Republic of Panama, and is one of the main commercial aviation companies in Latin America. It currently offers 110 daily flights to 33 destinations in 20 countries in North, Central and South America and in the Caribbean, also providing flights to another 120 international destinations, through agreements established with other airlines, amongst which is Continental Airlines. With a fleet of 25 aircraft Copa Airlines operates one flight per day to Mexico City, with B737-700 and B737-800 aircraft.
