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f+h Intralogistics 2/2016

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  • Intralogistics
f+h Intralogistics 2/2016

The ten most high

The ten most high capacity airports in Europe form part of the global production and supply chain London 1,51 Mio. t Paris 0,53 Mio. t 0,38 Mio. t 0,67 Mio. t AIRPORT LOGISTICS Brussels Liège Luxembourg Amsterdam 1,56 Mio. t Cologne-Bonn 2,09 Mio. t Frankfurt 0,87 Mio. t Leipzig-Halle 1,49 Mio. t 0,72 Mio. t Milan 0,43 Mio. t

Planes are the preferred means of the transport used to connect people with the rest of the world in a short amount of time. However, it is not just people who are transported by plane and “processed” at airports but also a variety of particularly capital intensive goods. According to our own rankings (as at 2013), we manage the ten most high capacity airports in Europe relating to the quantity of freight handled in tones. Goods transported by plane are not just processed by cargo planes but a large part of the airfreight volume is shipped in the belly of commercial aircrafts. In technical jargon, this combination is referred to as “belly cargo” − freight and passenger traffic are thus closely interlinked and dependent upon one another. When it comes to transporting freight, planes are predestined for shipping time-sensitive, quickly perishable and high-value cargo due to the high speed and safety levels they offer. If you just consider the pure weight of goods transported around the world, airfreight only accounts for a proportion of less than one percent − however when the pure goods value is taken into consideration this share rises to 40 percent. Due to the economic share of high value goods, for example from the communication and data processing sector, increasing in comparison to that of bulk goods, the short transport times are particularly important despite high freight costs. If a highvalue product, such as a smartphone, is to penetrate the market quickly, transport by plane is still an unrivalled solution. Airfreight ensures that international markets are connected over large distances in a timely way via the supply chain. However, to ensure that goods can be supplied to markets without long interruptions to the supply chain, airports, as the load bearing infrastructure of airfreight transport, do not just have to process the arrival and departure of planes. As a transport hub, an airport is also responsible for the continued transit of passengers and cargo. It is therefore important that airports have excellent rail and road connections or have links to the river, canal or sea shipping sector (intermodal transport links). Airports should also have enough space for freight terminals. The necessary infrastructure of a freight terminal must include freight receipt and dispatch, a sorting and storage area as well as a freight loading area, storage rooms for special freight and an administrative building. Special pallet and container unit load devices (ULD) are, amongst other things, used to load the freight on to planes. These are usually made of aluminum, fitted with connections to hold cargo netting and enable large amounts of cargo to be bundled in large units. As the shipping documents for the airfreight must be uniform and the abbreviations that are used must be understood internationally, international airlines have joined forces to regulate this and have formed the International Air Transport Association (IATA). The first objective of the IATA is to standardize all of the handling processes that are implemented when transporting passengers and cargo. The IATA code – a combination of three Latin letters – is used for the unique identification of individual commercial airports and is stipulated in our ranking for the relevant airport. Airfreight enables Europe to be connected to international production chains around the clock. Speed, flexibility and reliability of companies are the most frequently reported reasons why planes are selected as the means of transport. Text: Manfred Weber Graphics: Fotolia/processing: VFV Layout f+h Distribution 2/2016

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