On May 1, 2021 Samskip Air opens its doors at new offices at 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 ‘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.
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). Joining Samskip as airfreight manager after four years of running Fairways Group to support Aeroméxico and DHL Aviation, Blauw reports to Mon Verstegen, general manager freight forwarding, 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,” says 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 airfreight services for high value cargoes, pier-to-pier and door-to-door.”
While Covid-19 brought a dip in 2020 traffic, 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 no.2 airport for freight.
Martijn Tasma, director global forwarding, Samskip Logistics, comments:
“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 airfreight customers and the support network to de-risk the air freight supply chain.”