Interview with Head of cargo operations, Aeroports de Paris
Do you have many clients?
We have more than 400 airfreight customers at Orlv and Roissy Airports, but the amount of business that we do with them varies widely. Only 20% of our customers generate 80% of our turnover, and the remaining 80% therefore just account for 20%. Three companies figure prominently among our most important clients: Air France Cargo, La Poste (the French postal service) and Federal Express, followed by other integrators such as UPS or DHL and other airlines.
How are airfreight volumes distributed between Orly and Roissy?
Here too, distribution is very uneven. Airfreight is closely associated with intercontinental traffic, which has practically disappeared from Orly, apart perhaps from flights serving the Caribbean, the Near East or North Africa. This traffic generates about 100,000 tonnes of freight annually per year, relatively insignificant compared to the 1.6 million tonnes handled each year at Roissy. All in all, only 176 all-cargo flights per sear are handled at Orly. In any case, 55—60% of all airfreight is carried by passenger aircraft. Thus all-cargo flights only account for a minority of airfreight movements, and most of the airlines that operate all-cargo services also offer passenger flights from our airports.
Are you running out of capacity?
e have the physical capacity to at least double the current airfreight tonnage, assuming that the conditions remain unchanged. Here in Roissy, we have enough room and the buildings are not very high. It would be relatively straightforward to increase our capacity by replacing the existing buildings with high-risc accommodation. There is room for everyone: airlines, cargo handling agents, airfreight forwarders and other services providers. Roissy serves as an international gateway for exports and imports. and we are surrounded by
large logistics facilities located in the adjacent trading zones.
What about last year’s results?
Orly and Roissv handled a total 1,704,910 tonnes of freight and mail last year, a drop of —1.5% compared to the year 2000, actually not had, all things considered. Fortunately. letter and packet volumes grew. Freight volumes excluding mail totalled 1,460300 tonnes, down —3.8%. So we recorded a downturn in volumes compared to the year 2000, although it was less marked than in London or Frankfurt. On the other hand, Amsterdam managed to limit the drop to only —3.2%.
The slowdown however set in before September 11. The airfreight business has always reacted very sensitively to changes in the global economic climate. Results had already started to deteriorate in April 2001. After September 11, volumes plummeted because, for a few days. all flights to the US were cancelled, and afterwards the downward trend that had been manifest since April 2001 continued more strongly than before. On the plus side, business
has now started to pick up slightly. I think that our results are better than Frankfurt’s or London’s, because we do a great deal of express business through FedEx. UPS and DHL. People are travelling less, and as a consequence they seem to he sending more by mail. This has boosted our volumes. Thus, while conventional airfreight has slumped badly. express mail has been less badly affected.
You are implementing a programme to increase security. What does it involve?
We carried out a security audit a few years ago and concluded that we needed to take better counter-terrorism measures. We launched a number of initiatives. The first phase, which started in 1999, involved checking the airfreight in accordance with the <
You also introduced quality benchmarking. What does that mean?
In Paris we set up an interdisciplinary airfreight committee consisting of representatives from the shippers, freight forwarders. airlines, airports. cargo handlers and customs. This committee decided to launch a quality initiative for Roissy. We evaluated the various needs
— speed, compliance with contracts, integrity of freight consignments. to mention only the most basic requirements. We measured performance in these areas and used these results to create a series of benchmarks. Now we can measure the difference between the target-
ed and the achieved performance and of course work to reduce any gap. This quality system was certified by an independent agency. to ensure the highest possible degrees of impartiality and transparency.
What is your reaction to the protests against the noise caused by night flights?
This is a major political and social problem, and it gives rise to debate and controversy almost everywhere, not only in Paris, but also in London, Frankfurt and points beyond. For many years, the negative side effects of airport operations were accepted as a necessary evil — because of the number of jobs involved. Today, noise pollution caused by aircraft has taken centre stage. Nobody wants this in their <
The problem of the night flights must be settled on a European level. Europe has an enormous number of airports, many more than necessary. At Roissy. an upper noise limit has been set. In 1997, we assigned every flight a noise index depending on the type of aircraft engine, and the index value may not be exceeded. We have successfully complied with this limit since 1997. But for local residents this is not enough. A bill submitted by Deputy Yves Cochct stipulates that the noise made by an aircraft must not exceed 85 decibels. I believe that this is a sensible compromise and a first step in the right direction.
The area around Orly is very densely populated. At Roissy the situation is completely different. One of Federal Express’s reasons for selecting Roissv a few years ago was that it could count on being permitted to run night flights. We and FedEx both made a substantial investment in the project — EUR 100 million each. La Poste also set up a dedicated cargo handling hub for night traffic at Roissy. Together these operations directly generate 4,000 jobs. which would be jeopardised by a ban on night flights. However, we have proposed a pragmatic solution for airfreight, especially for the mail services. Of all the night flights between 23:00 hrs and 06:00 hrs, half travel less than 500 km. And half of those flights serve London, Lyon, Bordeaux, Liege and Cologne. All these cities have a TGV link with Paris. We therefore suggest replacing aircraft by train in these cases. UnIv five trains a night could reduce the number of nocturnal aircraft movements by a quarter. And if the authorities were to ban all night flights of less than 500 km, this would result in the total being halved.
What do you think of the government’s proposal to shift airfreight traffic from Roissy to Vatry?
Almost 60% of the airfreight is carried in the belly holds of passenger aircraft. Transferring cargo operations to Vatrv would therefore mainly affect FedEx and the mail services. Of course, the government could pass a law forbidding all night flights. But the most probable consequence is that, instead of relocating to Vatry, FedEx would go somewhere else, perhaps to Amsterdam, which put in a bid for the FedEx contract at the time. FedEx chose Roissy because it could also use the passenger services — about 300 flights per week.
This does not have to mean that Vatr cannot grow. We do not want to attract all business to Paris. We believe that there is room for everyone — so why not for Vatry, Chateauroux or an airport in another area, because we also work with lyon. Nantes. Toulouse, Basel-Mulhouse, Geneva, Nice and Marseille. In our opinion we are not competing against each other. We could double our tonnage throughput, but we want to keep this capacity in reserve for our existing customers. We believe that it is in our interest to operate an airport that provides services of a high standard that satisfy our customers.
