LIEGE: April 16, 2019. Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) is to provide handling at Liege airport for AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC) ahead of the opening of new cargo facilities this year.

In July 2018, ABC parent Volga-Dnepr Group (VDG) and its subsidiary CargoLogicAir signed an MoU with Liege Airport to develop a regional freighter hub. It followed an announcement in May by Alibaba’s logistics subsidiary Cainiao Network it had chosen Liege as its European hub.

At the time Cainiao said it had a goal of delivering door-to-door in five days by 2021 and its partnership with Liege was intended to encourage local SMEs to use e-commerce to promote their exports.

Now VDG/ABC want to operate 30 flights a week by then with Liege providing the necessary infrastructure including 23,000 square metres of warehousing and 4,000 square metres of offices.

“Our close collaboration will facilitate the seamless and rapid building of the first 12,500 sq. mt. of warehousing premises, which will be operational in November 2019,” said ABC vice president Europe Andrey Andreev. “This will support our intention to increase ABC’s current schedule of eight weekly frequencies from Liege to our target of 30 flights per week by 2020.”

Liege Airport CEO Luc Partoune commented: “From the start of our cooperation AirBridgeCargo and Liege Airport have been a perfect match and WFS is now a welcome addition. We all share the same cargo DNA. All of the parties involved in this partnership are really committing to the future of Liege, not only on paper but by investing millions of euros in a new state-of-the-art facility."

WFS Group chief commercial officer Barry Nassberg said he was extremely proud to be partnering with AirBridgeCargo and Liege Airport while continuing a long relationship with ABC. “We’re also excited about entering the Liege market for the first time, which has been a strategic objective of ours.”