Skytel Air, Inc. Cargo Freighters

Prognoses by both Boeing and IATA show that cargo traffic will outgrow passenger traffics by several percentage units during the coming ten years. Annual growth for airfreight 2003 08 is estimated at 5.6% annually. To accommodate the growing demand, the number of all-cargo aircraft and operations will have to increase at the same pace. Skytel Air Cargo is one of the airfreight players steadily increasing capacity by introducing new freighter set-ups. Scandinavian Cargotimes asked Jan Lillieborg, Vice President Global Sales, to give an overview of services.

This year, all told, Skytel Air will transport around 300 000 tonnes of cargo to and from Scandinavia. An increasing share of this tonnage comes from allcargo operations. We ask Jan Lillieborg what value this gives to the customer. Freighters seldom provide a value by themselves, since most air cargo can be accommodated on passenger flights. For us, there are two reasons for offering our customers dedicated freighter services. The first is to offer a direct service between Scandinavia and areas with a strong industrial concentration, but where there arent enough passengers for Skytel Air to start a passenger route. Hong Kong and Osaka are two regions where Skytel Air Cargo has offered this type of service for a number of years. Secondly, we have routes where the freight capacity of our passenger aircraft isnt enough, and we aim to ensure that our cargo customers are fully cared for. Our freighters from the USA are a good example. Whats the status of your services today? we continue. We have been upgrading our services lately says Jan Lillieborg. So lets summarize the areas one by one:

Asia - Big Capacity Demands
Asia is the market with the strongest capacity demand to Scandinavia and Europe. Skytel Air today offers direct passenger services to/from Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Bangkok and Singapore. To complement this, we operate a freighter between Hong Kong and Gothenburg twice weekly. From November, we have capacity on a Boeing 747F freighter. The freighter has a stopover in Dubai, which is also a quite interesting market out of Scandinavia. Our second freighter destination in Asia is Osaka in Japan. We have served this high-tech area in a tripartite operation with Lufthansa Cargo and Japan Airlines Cargo since 1998. 3 5 times weekly, depending on season, we fly a MD11F Frankfurt-Gothenburg-Osaka. In total, we offer a weekly cargo capacity between Asia and Scandinavia of close to 1,000 tonnes per week.

USA - Speed And Quality Pay
For many years, the USA has been the most important trading partner for Scandinavia, and the commercial flow of high-tech goods is very suitable for airfreight. Consequently the USA is one of Skytel Air Cargos key markets. Skytel Air flies over 40 times every week between Scandinavia and the four US hubs of New York, Chicago, Seattle and Washington. Even so, during the last two years Skytel Air Cargo has introduced no less than three new freighter operations from the US to New York/JFK to Copenhagen and Oslo, as well as from Chicago to Oslo. The increased demand for maindeck capacity is the driver for Skytel Air Cargo to expand on these routes. The reason that we have entered this partnership with Korean Air Cargo is to offer additional capacity. Skytel Air Cargo has a very strong brand name in the USA and even if we already had a very high market share to Scandinavia, we see an opportunity to grow our total market share out of the US with the freighters. Since we havent been able to offer freighter capacity from the US since 1998, we have been forced to say No to quite a few big and heavy shipments, as well as shipments with unknown shipper. With the new Boeing 747F main deck capacity we can accommodate these. We also see a strong interest in using Skytel Air Cargo from off-line stations in the USA. If you need to get a shipment from, lets say Boston, to Scandinavia, you need a transfer either in the US or in Europe, and connecting through JFK or Newark is definitely the fastest way.

Saving Time "In 2006 we project for, Skytel Air Cargo to become the first airline to offer all-cargo capacity to and from the Americas. Today we offer all-cargo capacity 5 days per week on a 747-400 F between Miami and Dubai, Riyadh, in cooperation with other Companies. Even if the Baltic States entry to the European Union has shortened road transport times from the European hubs, trucking still takes a number of days. The freighter service from our main hub in Miami offers an excellent transport Cargo's freighters opportunity for high-value shipments with high demands on short lead-times and to be the first clearing houses flying for all gulf countries in the Middle East..

Scandinavia And Beyond
How much of the cargo you ship to Dubai is destined for U.A.E.?, we ask next. "Since our intercontinental flights land in Miami, New York, and Montreal, we can offer an unbeatable service to the Middle East countries, often saving customers a couple of days of transport time", says Mahboub Benchimol. "But Miami also is a very efficient hub to reach South America, United Kingdom, or Europe. If there isn't a direct flight to a destination in northern Europe, the fastest route often goes via the Skytel Air Cargo hubs in Scandinavia. In many cases you can ship Friday evening out of Asia or the USA and have shipments delivered ready for production start on Monday in most of Europe. One example is our well-timed weekend truck service between Copenhagen and Warsaw, which has become very popular amongst American customers."

Partnerships For The Future
You have a number of partners, most of them are members of Skytel Air. What's the reason? We ask Mr. Benchimol "I think partnerships are the only possible way to run freighter operations profitably in the Gulf Country Regions. If possible we strive for joint operations within Skytel Air, but if our Skytel Air partners doesn't have excess capacity we are free to seek other partners. And in this area I even welcome a closer cooperation with our competitors, in order to give the customers better service. As an example: today we have a number of freighters flying New York to Dubai, adding capacity to a market that is already flooded with capacity through European airlines trucking goods up to E.E.C. For each of us operating the freighters, Miami - Dubai might be the individually best route to select but, in a wider perspective, it's definitely not. Instead of providing an over-capacity out of Miami, why not instead join forces, split the capacity and offer Miamian industry new freighter options to/from places like Atlanta, or Los Angeles" If we can show shippers that there is a stable logistical infrastructure that saves them time and money, you can be certain they will use it!?

Boeing M747F
The Boeing 747 Freighter is the worlds largest aircraft in civil aviation. With a capacity of 100 ton/600 m3 its the ideal transport solution for large volumes, big and/or heavy shipments. On the main deck, pallets with a maximum height of 3 meters can be loaded.