RJ freighter into Athens

ATHENS Airport recently welcomed new freighter flights including the A310 freighter service from Royal Jordanian. The weekly service carries a mix of inbound and transit cargo and returns with mainly heavy and outsized shipments. Last week’s inbound freight consisted mostly of textiles and garments from India and China destined for local markets, whilst around the 14 tonnes of transit goods for transfer to Continental was mainly spare parts and machinery for the USA. Following a new agreement between British Airways and Royal Jordanian, the freighter also carries several tonnes of mixed pharmaceuticals, spare parts and machinery for the USA. Following a new agreement between British Airways and Royal Jordanian, the freighter also carries several tonnes of mixed pharmaceuticals, spare parts and garments for the UK. The freighter service operates in addition to the four weekly passenger flights. Freighter capacity can be used for transporting further transit cargo from the Middle East via Athens to Eastern Europe.

In addition, between 31 May and 1 June, a B747F of El Al Israel Airlines, delivered several tonnes of transit cargo to connect with Thai Airways. The return shipments to Jerusalem consisted of 22 classic cars for their biennial London to Jerusalem rally.

Alexis Sioris (above), manager for cargo development, said: “The entire Athens cargo community has worked hard as a team to improve and streamline the service. We now are getting some healthy payback from this and are providing that we have an excellent transit position for connecting with the 74 airlines which serve us, including seven cargo airlines, TNT, UPS, EAT, FedEx, Aeroland, Swiftair Hellas and Air Urga. The quality programme, which earned us the ‘Award for Excellence’ earlier this year, has helped in this effort to offer top level service. We are very encouraged by progress of the traffic especially freighters.”