Swissport International expands in Austria

Ground handler Swissport International has signed a letter of intent to form a joint venture that will provide air cargo services at Graz Airport, the third biggest regional airport in Austria.
The start of the operations for the joint venture, Swissport Cargo Services Graz, is planned for the beginning of 2016. It will handle approximately 10,000 tonnes of air cargo per year for airlines and freight forwarders. 
“Over the last months, we have led intense talks with Swissport International in order to lift the future of the cargo business at Flughafen Graz onto an even better basis”, explained Wolfgang Malik, chairman of the board of the Holding Graz.
“Our aim was a close cooperation, which would lead to an expansion of cargo activities and the service offering as well as an improvement of the service quality, all of which would ultimately profit not only Graz Airport but also the economy of Styria.
“We are very happy that we have achieved our aim in the form of a joint venture with the world’s biggest service provider in the area of air cargo services.”
Philipp Joeinig, executive vice president Europe at Swissport International, said: “What makes this cooperation special is the fact that we can build on existing as well as future client relations in order to expand our cargo offering in Austria from Vienna to Graz and beyond that in the future.”
Swissport International handles 4.1m tonnes of cargo a year.