Northern European intermodal and perishables logistics specialist adds dedicated air cargo unit, including potentially its own aircraft capacity, to portfolio that includes rail, road, shortsea and inland waterway links throughout Europe and global logistics solutions.
Northern European shortsea and intermodal specialist Samskip has established a dedicated air freight business, including potentially operating its own aircraft capacity, adding new options to a service portfolio that already includes rail, road, shortsea and inland waterway links throughout Europe and global cargo logistics solutions.
Samskip Air opened its doors on 1 May at new offices at Amsterdam Schiphol Airport, “tasked with growing the air freight volumes Samskip already books, establishing new routes and developing opportunities for cooperation with Samskip’s pan-European multimodal network”, the company said.
The company said ‘one stop shop’ logistics options already available to Samskip generate 850,000TEU in container traffic each year, as well as sizeable general, breakbulk and project cargo volumes.
The plan initially is to act as a traditional air freight forwarding agent, accessing capacity provided by third-party commercial airline suppliers, “and using charters on request”, although in the longer term there are also plans to launch its own dedicated air freight capacity, a spokesperson told Lloyd’s Loading List, noting: “The intention is, indeed, to have our own dedicated aircraft, hopefully by 2025.”
Samskip highlighted that it already has significant experience in providing end-to-end air freight solutions through the ‘Russian air bridge’ solution it launched in 2019. Samskip Russia launched that air freight service connecting Moscow and St Petersburg to destinations worldwide, “providing a single point of contact for time sensitive shipments door to door”, in response to a request from a specific customer.
While air freight has been a non-core offering in the past for Samskip, a spokesperson told Lloyd’s Loading List “we noticed that over the past three years, our customers have an increased urge to ship high-value cargo quicker than over sea or by rail. We have been monitoring this growth and see that over the last years, we have exceeded our goals in terms of revenue and amount of bookings coming in for air transportation.
“We have set up a business plan for the coming two years, starting with opening an office at Schiphol airport and trademarking Samskip Air. If the bookings continue to increase as they have been over recent years, a dedicated aircraft is indeed highly considered.”
Multimodal opportunity
Acknowledging that “there are plenty of other players in the region” offering air freight services, the company’s wider network offered the potential to offer the advantage of a one-stop shop. “We have our multimodal European network at our disposal. This is something that our customers can benefit from without having to further ship with another party,” the company highlighted.
Samskip Air will be managed by Hans Blauw, “whose 35-year resumé reads like a Who’s Who of air freight, including executive positions with KLM, Hellman Worldwide, FedEx, TNT and ALM (Aircraft Load Management)”, Samskip said. Joining Samskip as air freight manager after four years of running Fairways Group to support Aeroméxico and DHL Aviation, Blauw reports to Mon Verstegen, general manager for Freight Forwarding at Samskip Logistics.
“As a career logistics professional, the opportunity to help Samskip Air become a force in airfreight logistics was too good to miss, in a market that is currently under-served on quality,” said Blauw. “The group has exceptional skills in temperature-controlled goods, pharmaceuticals, electrical goods and automotive parts, and there is always room for services that offer reliability, cargo handling expertise, security and robust documentation.
“With 47 offices in 35 countries, Samskip has the network, the local staff, the customs knowhow and the digital booking systems to flourish in offering air freight services for high value cargoes, pier-to-pier and door-to-door.”
While Covid-19 brought a dip in 2020 traffic for Schiphol, recent years have seen annual freight volumes handled by Dutch airports stabilise at between 1.6 million and 1.8 million tonnes. Around 93% of this freight is handled at Schiphol, Europe’s second-busiest airport for freight.
Martijn Tasma, director for global forwarding at Samskip Logistics, commented: “Schiphol is a global gateway for air freight business with China, the United States, South America, Russia, the Middle East and Africa, and provides a European gateway to Samskip’s multimodal network of trucks, trains, barges and short sea vessels. Hans’s track record speaks for itself and we are delighted to welcome him aboard as the entrepreneurial engine driving Samskip Air.
“We look forward to consolidating our leading logistics role in Scandinavian fisheries exports and working with our global offices to develop other volumes and links at other airports. In the weeks ahead, we will be presenting Samskip Air and explaining how, as a major transport group, Samskip has the negotiating power that works to the advantage of its air freight customers and the support network to de-risk the air freight supply chain.”
Samskip offers pan-European, combined transport services via shortsea, road, rail and inland waterway routes, including high-frequency services connecting destinations across Europe, the Baltic States, Iceland and Faroes Island, and Russia – transported using a range of owned vessels, containers, trucks and trailers. Samskip’s Global Forwarding division offers global expertise in transporting perishables, with offices throughout Europe, Asia and the Americas “connected by state-of-the-art operational software, and backed by a group transporting 800,000 containers every year”.
Source: lloyd´s
