Last week saw Foro Madrid Cargo organise the first official Madrid Air Cargo Day in Madrid, in collaboration with Aena (Spain's largest airport operator with international branches) and IATA.

The main theme of this Cargo Day was "modernisation of the air freight world: projects, challenges and trends". More than one hundred attendees signed up to be present at the event. David Bellon (Vice President of Air Cargo Belgium) and Sara Van Gelder (Brussels Airport Company) were guest speakers.

Foro Madrid Cargo is a partnership between companies that are active in the world of air cargo, including their users (exporters). Air Cargo Belgium was invited by Foro Madrid Cargo to explain the activities of its association in Belgium and its specific strategy regarding digitisation.
David Bellon, Vice Chairman of Air Cargo Belgium and Sara Van Gelder, Business Development Manager of Brussels Airport were guest speakers and described in their presentation the emergence of Air Cargo Belgium as a cluster organisation, its structure, critical success factors and in detail the various initiatives on digitisation that were rolled out under the BRUcloud.

During the following question session, the interest in setting up a similar initiative and the challenges specific to the Spanish airfreight sector became clear.
Further presentations by IATA, Aena, the Spanish customs services as well as a panel discussion on e-commerce completed the programme. In the closing speech, Jesus Cuellar, chairman of Foro Madrid Cargo, also Sales Director at DB Schenker Spain, praised the presence of the Belgian colleagues for their presentation and pointed out that the creation of a similar association in Madrid will be crucial to meet the challenges of the future. He hoped that in the future he would be able to enter into partnerships with other airports in Europe in order to develop knowledge, and for this he handed out a hand to Air Cargo Belgium.