Charges/incentive in LGG

[liege-bierset]

Regy: I don't understand what your last post is about ?
I have been in the sea freight business before and can tell you that shipping from HKG or Singapore to Antwerp is the same whatever if final destination is Liège, Genk, Lille, Germany or Brussels. Than you have container handling charges, gate charges and demurrage are the same as well. So where is the point ?
You probably know that Liège Port is in the top 3 in Europe with Paris and Duistburg. Liège steel industry is (was) one of the big cutomers of Antwerpen port (coal, ore, steel coils and coated plates). So you see if Mittal are reducing their activity in Belgium (Gent, Charleroi, Liège, Lux) it will be a hard hit for Antwerpen. And sadly they do not deserve that since, on top, G.M. Opel are flying away.
- About LGG, most of the full cargoes flying in (ET, EL AL, CAL Israel, Icelandair) are fresh products mainly going to Germany, NL, France, Baltic countries, Scandinavia even Italy and Spain...just check, tens of European trucks waitting for flights every days.
TNT Airways are carrying HiTec. equipment, Manufactured goods , mail out of HKG,PVG, Singapore and soon from India. Not to forget: Southern Air, ABX,Ukrain Cargo, Avient, Emirates. Also Kallita (2 to 6/day) on the way to M.E. Same for Evergreen, Atlas, Russian Antonov's, Polar are regular visitors.That makes around 120 jumbos per week. TNT Express and contractors are good for 35 to 40 flights/day.

Seen in E.A.S. blog: Avient MD11-F (reg. Z.BAT) is ready in Miami and seems to be soon delivered.

You see my friends, unless Filou is an IATA or Brucargo insider, it's easy to throw numbers, second hand informations, questioning LGG friends , excuse me, as Gestapo in the old days. You most surely know better than us what's going on in BRU. As far as LGG is concerned you "preach (the false) to get the true" , so far none of your infos are double-checked. It is just blowing in the wind to make a case. Leipzig is more a cruel story for BRU (DHL) than for LGG, they have got huge amount of money /subsized by the Lander.
True BRU have ,many agents at brucargo but most of them have HQ in Amsterdam. LGG is maybe a medium player but compare BRU with AMS . David and Goliat!

[Filou]

Dear Liege Bierset,
Regi meant to say that a local transport to LGG instead of BRU indeed makes a difference in costprice, and if I am an exporting company for example based in East Flanders, that my cost will surely be higher for delivering to LGG instead of BRU. His comparison was meant to say that indeed - when you compare the cost of roadtransport to seafreight transport- it can be even equivalent.(a ANR-LGG roadtraction cost approx the same as a ctr to SHA.) But this was just a comparison, had nothing to do with seafreight as such.
I opted the fact that also airlines start to look at the total costpciture, not only of the aircraft part, and that extra precarriage or oncarriage should be added to the total costs too,giving one extra reason why some choose for BRU and noty for LGG (as the total cost might end up higher)

And you are right, LGG region is a good customer for the port of Antwerp, unfortunately most shipping lines nowadays are not even interested anymore in that steel business, because the weight is to heavy and with the reduced capacity they prefer lots of lightweighted containers. But this off the record, and you are right about the importance of the region for the port of Antwerp.

Regarding your figures,I am absoltely not throwing up numbers, I have made the calculation myself of ALL european cargo airports, and that why I indeed say that NONE of the other european cargo airports had more foreign full freighter flights than BRU did at that time. You should do teh same, look at scheduled full freighter flights.
Now is you say that LGG has about 120 JUMBO's a week, I am not saying it can not happen, I am very curious how many weeks this happens. Because most of the last mentionned carriers are absolutely not flying scheduled into LGG as far as I know (polar,antonov,atlas,evergreen,etc...)
And an exceptional week should not be taken standard, the way you say is that every week about 120 jumbo's end up at LGG, which I seriously doubt.
But whatever, even if it is right, it is VERY good for LGG, as long as it is not BRU cargo that is taken away with money. That is my only point of view.
And the carriers mentionned above, like Antonov, Polar etc are all mainly operating charters and not standard regular business. That can explain it of course, they indeed are always in search of cheap solutions to make their profits. None of them has own cargo or business, they operate for third parties.
And by the way, the Avient case is honestly saying not really something to be proud of I believe. Also here we all know that Avient did not choose it on purpose, they accepted LGG as it was one of the only airports who wanted them. Many others simply would refuse them because of their background and of the nature of their operations and financial situation. So did BRU by the way a customer like Avient is absolutely not what BRu wants/needs...

[Filou]

Liege-Bierset, I have been quickly checking the flight numbers as you said, I never reach 120 jumbos. Please give me more details about when it would have happened.
Sorry to say, but I believe that you blow up the figures,just a same way as LGG blows up some of it's website details like the forwarders base in this case that I just checked 5 minutes ago.
They are proud to list 9 forwarders, but if you look into the adres details, you will find that 3 of the 9 are Brussels based,including contactadres and contacttelephone numbers. Which then is contradictionary to your own wordings saying forwarders HQ are in AMS, then they would have listed AMS addresses, wouldn't they ?
And how lovely is it to blow up figures with 30 %, were you doing the same perhaps ?

[taz1968]

I think on average LGG airport has about 50 B747 a week, not that it matters a lot, since tonnage is more important and not what kind of A/C is flying it.
I came to my calculation with these figures:
all on average:
1 X EL AL a day
1 X ETH( operated by Southern)
1 X CAL
1 X TNT
2 X Kallita
1 x charter (could be any company)
Keep in mind these are only averages a day ( so could be 2 a day, some days a company does nothing)

So in regard of number of B747 this seems a more realistic calculation

[Filou]

Thanks Taz, it is less than half of what Liege Bierset said, and also for me it is surely more realistic.

[taz1968]

I must say since i'm reading the "luchtzak" forums I always wonder why there is so much competition between the walloon and flemish part of belgium.
It might be that I'm dutch and do not quite understand exactly the feelings between the 2 population groups.

But anyhow I have an opinion regarding this matter to:

I think BRU never needs to worry a lot about charges that Liege-Airport charges to customers.
Why? I think its already been mentioned in earlier topics, Brussels is a Pax and Cargo airport and not to be forgotten the Capitol of Belgium.
Flag carriers will mostly choose an airport which has possiblities for both Pax and Cargo, since they then have more flexibilty in choosing in which way cargo will be flown.
Don't forget Pax aircraft have also considerably payload in cargo (B777, A330 etc....).
I must say Royal Jordanian is a great example of this, the flew for 10 years on MST, where they got great service, I think even better then they do now.
At the end 1 or 2 hours more delay at BRU compared to MST, is not that important, since Brussels has more potential customers, and also important, RJ has also pax flights, which can take part of cargo against considerably less costs.

What does LGG have to counter this?
Well, an important thing is, they have WAY less congestion at ramp at handlers and at road transport.
This makes it especially interesting for companies which fly Perishables, where time is an important factor.
MST is also using this fact, with CLX, which used to fly at SPL (which is also a congested airport).
The other factor is also prices!!
Of course LGG tries to get as much as possible customers, by offering considerably lower prices than brussels
or in fact than any other Mainport.'
Also incentives are a way of getting a company, but I'm sure even Brussels does it, although of course they will not advertise it.

In short although I like the discussion, as far as I know ETH is the only company which left BRU to go to another airport within Belgium, all others left outside belgium.
So why always the discussion BRU against LGG (or CRL) and the other way around.

I think BRU and LGG would be great team mates, instead of competitors.
They each have there own specialities advantages and disadvantages.

Team up and it would be a great combination

[Filou]

To Taz: BRU does offer incentives and they are public, straight forward and open/honest and official.
Just look at the website, they are published over there. But there are no exceptions at all possible on the incentives, and no extra incentives possible neither.
On the other hand, the BRU incentives are in my idea only meant to show their will towards an airline, but I believe that the airline will never consider BRU due to that incentive only.
Because why the hell should an airline matter about some 500 Euro a flight, when the total operating cost for that flight is about 180.000 Euro...
SPL trippled their cargo incentives about 3 to 4 months ago, and then it starts to be a considerable item for airlines as it then is worth it.
So does LGG with their extra and additional incentives when they offer free trucking for example between the old and the new hub. We talk about 150.000 Euro to 200.000 Euro/ year then. So is the same when they offer free inbound handling, these are considerable amounts.
But, the question is...should an airport be involved in offering free trucking, free handling, etc ??? Shouldn't it be focussing on their own service ?
As far as I see it, an airportcompany is the company who operates an airport, but not who operates trucking or handling, or ... All these services are outsourced, why should they offer money on outsourced services ?

You as Dutchman, what is your reaction please when you know that LGG offered hugh amounts to have MASkargo leaving SPL to move to LGG ? That they offered upto 1 full year of free trucking between SPL and LGG for all the cargo to and from SPL ? That they offered free inbound handling ?
Do you believe SPL can compete against these facts ?
Luckily for SPL, LGG still did not succeed, but it remains a difficult competition, isn't it ?
Even SPL who has more financial possibilities right now, will not be able to compete the same way I believe.

PS: Cargo B was attracked to LGG the same way as ET, with LOTS of money...

[regi]

Thank you Filou to take up my defence.
I didn't realize that for some members , who even use words as " Gestapo" , it was too difficult too understand the meaning of my measage : distance does matter.

[Filou]

My pleasure...
something is also clear for me in these last months, you should have a look in all priorly posted messages by these same people: they seem to love using these kind of very aggressive words, and they always say that we, the others, are in search for a fight or whatsoever.
Poor attitude, but we will live with it, for us the message counts, not the aggresive wordings

[Acid-drop]

The number of weekly jumbo is rather a useless unrepresentative number, but since you have started, I may correct :
This is taken from january flows, which are lower than nov/dec for ex.
It shows real numbers from official schedule when possible

Per week :
10 X EL AL (could be more)
10 X ETH 747 (operated by Southern) + MD11 (7x ?)
15 X CAL
7 X TNT (744) + ABX (10+ x ?)
30 X Kallita (but well ... it could be 280, it's not changing anything)
7 x Avient DC10/MD11 (could be more, i'm not so sure)
2 x charter (could be any company, but mostly an124 and evergreen 747, sometimes southernair flying for itself )

So if we take anything bigger than a 737, there's like >100 big birds flying per week. Anything smaller or equal to a 737 is flying for TNT.

[Acid-drop]

My pleasure...
something is also clear for me in these last months, you should have a look in all priorly posted messages by these same people: they seem to love using these kind of very aggressive words, and they always say that we, the others, are in search for a fight or whatsoever.
Poor attitude, but we will live with it, for us the message counts, not the aggresive wordings

Please ... you can't deny that propanganda for one or another is a daily matter in this forum ...

[Filou]

Acid-drop,
You mix up jumbo's with small aircraft, and you show figures wich are incorrect.
Excuse me, as a matter of proof I just rang CAL, one of your highest numbers that surprised me, and they have 5 weekly narrow body and only 2 weekly 747. (a total of 7 weekly and not 15 weekly.)
Kalitta is doing fuel stops, no cargo, so they can not be added to a cargo schedule.
If one says LGG is having 120 jumbo's a week I want a clear and correct picture, which I still can't see at all.

Just FYI, if a jumbo takes 100 tons in and 100 out, it makes 200 tons a flight x 120 flights = 24.000 Tons a week x 52 weeks 1.248.000 tons. Even with only a 50 % load, you would have more than you now have in total...
come on, be serious, come up with exact figures, not with wild guesses.

[Desert Rat]

Acid-drop,
Kalitta is doing fuel stops, no cargo, so they can not be added to a cargo schedule.

No, but it gives work to MX peoples to sign the CRS and perform defect rectification,to the ground handling to install the stair, to refuel the A/C, and to do the pushback...landing fees,catering,hotels for the crew,enz...at the end of the day it is business and employment for the LGG area,wich is a good thing.

So, even if there's no freight per se,it's business.

[Filou]

Fully understand it's business and revenue, but don't mix it up as a reason of high cargo volumes.
And that was the origin, we were talking about the fact that about 120 weekly jumbo's were the reason of the 480.000 Tons of cargo.

[Desert Rat]

Fully understand it's business and revenue, but don't mix it up as a reason of high cargo volumes.

Don't worry, I'm not mixing it up, I would not even bother to have more transit than freight if at the end of the month my profit would be higher.

[Filou]

And by the way, the profit WOULD be higher with transit only, as it is only revenue and like no real cost is involved.
Having inbound handling to be done and offered free of charges would reduce the profit, so indeed it should be more interesting to do these transit.
Can't we propose LGG to become Europe's biggest transit/fuel stop airport ?

[Desert Rat]

Can't we propose LGG to become Europe's biggest transit/fuel stop airport ?

Propose whatever you want and laugh as loud as you want.

[Acid-drop]

They clearly want to welcome more transit/fuel. It's one of the reason they have lenthen the track.
About CAL, my number was correct, my source is :
http://www.cal.co.il/service/?id=14

I meant 100 wide body, not 120 jumbo. The number is realistic and the total seems very possible.
(forgot to add the 757 of islandair flying for tnt)

[Desert Rat]

About CAL, my number was correct, my source is :
http://www.cal.co.il/service/?id=14

Interresting,the A/C flying to NY are based in LGG or just transit through???

[Acid-drop]

They have only one 747 it seems, and are using ABX for JFK now also ...
I think the 747 is based in tel aviv, but i'm not sure