Speaking on the sidelines of the Transport Logistic Conference in Shanghai, Oliver Evans, chief cargo officer of Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss) said unlike much of the China domestic market, Swiss WorldCargo, the airfreight division of Swiss, focused itself entirely on marketing the belly-hold cargo capacity of the Swiss fleet and also truck transportation between two ormore airports in the country.

“We focus on high yield items plus special needs of customers, including providing tailor-made solutions for products that generate higher added value,” said Bernd Maresch, director, head of cargo marketing & strategy at Swiss WorldCargo.

These include special services for valuables, temperature-controlled goods, express shipments, goods at risk of theft and airmail.

Swiss has positioned itself in the rapidly growing China market by launching a non-stop daily flight between Zurich and Shanghai in May this year, increasing Swiss WorldCargo’s capacity to and from China.

The service is provided using an A340-300 aircraft that offers 36 tonnes capacity per day through the Chinese city, the eighth largest city in the world. Aside from Shanghai, Swiss also flies to Hong Kong, Bangkok, Singapore and India in Asia. In total, it offers bellycapacity to over 150 destinations in over 80 countries.

Apart from the Swiss fleet’s belly capacity, Swiss WorldCargo also markets space provided by other national airlines which have standard interline agreements for onward shipment to a third country, but it does not have either full-freighter capacity or blocked space agreements.

“Despite this, Swiss WorldCargo is listed as a preferred carrier by all the key major international forwarders and logistic services providers as well as integrators based on its high level of quality services,” said Maresch. Swiss WorldCargo is leading in all published measures of Cargo 2000, an IATA initiated quality programme, he said.

Presently, Swiss WorldCargo’s customers comprise international forwarders and logistics companies such as DHL/Danzas, Kuehne + Nagel, Panalpina, UTI and Schenker and also another customer segment of regional and national forwarders.

A third segment is the integrators such as FedEx, UPS and DHL Worldwide Express, which off er their customers integrated transport services from door to door.

“Our clientele also includes niche logistics companies with special requirements,” Maresch said.

Swiss WorldCargo, which has completely remodeled its website – swissworldcargo.com – at the beginning of June, 2008, offers customers an intelligent, interactive working and information tool.

Using General Freight Exchange (GFX) trading platform, its customers can book capacity over the Internet.

Asked whether the soaring fuel prices had affected Swiss WorldCargo, Maresch explained that the company was lucky that its yield, comprising higher valued products, was higher than the general market level and therefore the company was not really affected.

Swiss has an average load factor of 86 per cent on intercontinental routes, a pretty high percentage compared with any airline’s belly load factor, he said.

As the airline’s capacity between Asia and Europe was full, Maresch said Swiss WorldCargo would be working hard to fill the belly capacity of the airline’s recently launched service to Shanghai.

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