A port city on the country’s northern Baltic Coast, Rostock comes to the market with a certain pedigree, having been a night mail hub for the Germany post office from 1994 to 2003. But perhaps more importantly, its new managing director is Maria Muller, who put Hahn airport near Frankfurt on the map as itsmarketing manager.
The German state in which Rostock is situated – Mecklenburg-West Pommerania – is also not unknown to Asian shippers, as it contains Parchim airport. Th is was recently bought by Chinese company LinkGlobal Logistics, which has already used it for B747F cargo flights from the PRC, and plans a three times a week service.
Far from regarding this rival 80 kilometres to the south as competition, Muller insists that it shows the potential of the region for cargo. She also insists that with LinkGlobal trying to off er a complete door to door service, Rostock is already attracting interest from freight forwarders as a neutral alternative. "We are just an airport, and will follow the orders of the forwarder, shipper or broker," she says.
In October, Muller had hopes of landing a weekly freighter flight from the UAE from an undisclosed carrier, but Cologne airport in western Germany won that instead. So her main focus now is on making Rostock’s name known, and in getting charter business.
She says the airport has had one or two charter flights so far, and she plans an aggressive marketing campaign to win more. "So far, the Middle East or Asia does not even know that we are on the map, but that will soon change," she says.
Rostock has a 3,000 metre runway, and being at sea level Muller insists this is enough to take the largest aircraft. Indeed, in June the airport proved this when German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who comes from the region, hosted a G8 summit in Rostock. On that occasion, Air Force One – a B747 – came to the airport, along with Russian president Putin’s IL-96.
The airport has all the requisite facilities for cargo, including a 2,000 square metre cargo facility, and has 24 hour operations – something that is increasingly rare in Europe. Muller is also playing on a lack of a dominant local carrier – in contrast to Leipzig which has DHL for example. As for the airport’s catchment area, she describes Mecklenburg-West Pomerania as "a sleeping beauty – there are lots of new companies settling here".
Two other ideas are that Rostock might be used for sea-air traffic, or as a low cost gateway to Scandinavia. For sea-air traffic, the port is only 30 minutes drive away, and Muller suggests that it could be used to feed traffic to Russia, avoiding the bureaucracy of the land border, for example.
Meanwhile ferries to Sweden take just two to three hours which gives access to the region around Malmo, and its road bridge to Copenhagen in Denmark. "All the Scandinavian airports are pretty expensive, and dominated by hub carriers," Muller says. "We have no such problems."
