- Emirates is launching a daily service to Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Aug. 5. The service will be operated by a Boeing 777-200LR. Chicago will become the airline’s ninth gateway in the U.S., following the commencement of its services to Boston on March 10.
- Qantas Freight reported underlying EBIT of AU$11 million (US$9.8 million) for the second half of 2013, down 50 percent from AU$22 million (US$19.6 million) in the first half of 2013, due to reduced capacity, consolidation and a weak global cargo market.
- Mike Parra was appointed to lead DHL Express in the U.S. as CEO. Parra most recently served as senior vice president of network operations for the DHL Express Americas Region.
- Walker SCM opened new office in Miami. This operations and warehousing space, which is located near Miami International Airport, will cater to air and oceanfreight customers.
- United Airlines chose Melbourne for its international launch of the new Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner. The new six-times-per-week service will begin on Oct. 28.
- Aer Lingus signed a master lease agreement with Envirotainer to allow the airline to offer Envirotainer products to its customers. Aer Lingus received approval from the Irish Aviation Authority for the carriage of the Envirotainer heating and cooling technologies RKN e1 and RAP e2 containers.
- Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo will fly 560 tonnes of flowers Feb. 18-27 from Andean countries to Europe for International Women’s Day, which is on March 8. This is in addition to the carrier’s regular flower shipments. Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo will add full charter flights and aircraft upgrades. The majority of this additional capacity is intended for the Russian market, where the tradition of giving flowers on International Women’s Day is widely observed.
- Çelebi, a ground-handling, cargo and warehouse operations company in Turkey, made a purchase in Germany as part of its strategy to expand in the international arena. The share purchase agreement requires transfer of all shares of Aviapartner Cargo GmbH to Celebi Cargo GmBH. Aviapartner Cargo is active in Germany’s Frankfurt and Hahn airports.
- Ethiopian Airlines will start daily flights July 8 from London Heathrow to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
- Etihad Airways will launch a non-stop daily service between Abu Dhabi and Phuket, the largest island in Thailand. The route will begin Oct. 26 using A330-200 aircraft.
- Volga-Dnepr Airlines transported the pressurized cargo module (PCM) of the Cygnus resupply spacecraft (pictured to the right) from Turin, Italy, to Wallops Island in Virginia. The PCM was packed into a special container and was flown on an An-124-100 Ruslan freighter. Experts from Thales Alenia Space Italia, which produced the PCM, accompanied the cargo. The Cygnus spacecraft was designed to ship supplies to the International Space Station.
- Turkish Cargo will start Istanbul-Stavropol, Russia-Istanbul flights three times per week on April 21. The carrier will launch Istanbul-Munster, Germany-Istanbul flights four times per week on June 18. Istanbul-Marseille, France flights are being increased from four times per week to seven, and Istanbul-Tehran, Iran flights from 21 frequencies per week to 28 as of March 30. Istanbul-Basel, Switzerland flights are being increased from seven flights per week to 11 beginning March 30.
- Boeing delivered the first 777-300ER to China Southern Airlines. The new airplane is the first of 10 777-300ERs China Southern has on order with Boeing.
- Greater Rockford Airport Authority in Chicago and Rock Valley College have combined efforts to create an expanded Aviation Maintenance Technology Program. Rockford is one of the largest epicenters of aerospace activity in the U.S.
- Airfreight portal Calogi re-launched its Dock Booking feature as part of its GHA c-Bridge product in Dubai. Dock Booking connects freight forwarders and cargo terminals, allowing agents to pre-book import or export docks, and receive priority service. Cargo terminals identify off-peak, normal or peak rates for each dock, to offer prices based on the terminal workload.
- CargoSphere, a global rate management service for the air transportation and logistics industries, announced enhancements to Smart Upload and Diagnostics Solution (SUDS) with the release of SUDS version 2.0 due out in late March. SUDS is a technological framework that reads and processes external freight rate data directly from any static document and loads it into a rate system database.