Cologne-Bonn provides air cargo support to fight Ebola virus

Cologne-Bonn Airport has allocated a staging area free of charge to facilitate the consolidation of air shipments in support of humanitarian organisations fighting the Ebola virus outbreak in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
The Logistics Cluster, a group of humanitarian organisations led by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), will facilitate and manage access to the staging area and its services.
A bonded warehouse, in which over 300 tonnes of relief supplies can be temporarily stored, is being made available by the German air hub to the Logistics Cluster without charge.
On a warehouse area of around 3,000 sq m, airport employees will group and pack the supplied commodity contributions for safe air transport.
Through the joint contribution of airport staff and parcels giant UPS, the dedicated space will support the planning, supply chain, co-loading and optimisation of aid flights.
The UPS Foundation provides $250,000 in funding to enable cargo handling and necessary overland transports to the storage facility – if a flight departs from another airport – and from the storage facility.
"UPS is pleased that this public-private partnership is filling a vital need for global transportation services to Ebola-effected counties by providing free staging storage and consolidation services to the Global Logistics Cluster," said Al Bedran, UPS Europe region transportation manager.
The staging area was used last week to support the first of many humanitarian charters to depart Cologne, the initial flight carrying 100 tonnes of consolidated relief supplies to West Africa
"From the Cologne Bonn Airport hub, more relief supplies will be transported to the crisis-hit region in order to provide the dedicated helpers with urgently needed materials," added Bedran.
Michael Garvens, board chairman of Flughafen Köln/Bonn, said: "WFP and the Logistics Cluster render tremendously important work. To us, it is a matter of course to support this work and make our contribution to helping people in need."
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