Sep 01, 2016: Panalpina has begun handling perishable air freight imports at Schiphol Airport starting September 1. At the location of Freight 18, Panalpina will receive the shipments directly from the platform, and completely handle them using the new cold stores.

Panalpina World Transport headed into a new direction in 2014, by focussing globally on the logistics of perishables. Driven by specialists in the field of perishables, and supported by their head office in Basel, Switzerland, they started setting up, and in many cases expanding further, the perishable network. Mid-2016 perishable offices can be found in, among other places, Kenya, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Spain, the UK, South Africa and Norway.

From Mexico, a twice-weekly flight can be used, operated by the Spirit of Panalpina, a Boeing 747-800F full freighter, which serves both Guadalajara and Mexico City. Panalpina does not just offer a unique door-to-door concept to various destinations in Europe with this, but also guaranteed capacity during the high season.

At the start of 2016, further expansion of activities at Schiphol Airport and its surrounding airports was also started. The redevelopment of Panalpina’s freight warehouse on the platform at Schiphol Airport is the pivot in all this. By changing the stream of freight of, among other things, pharmaceutical shipments to the other side of the runway, space became available for a perishable centre with a direct platform connection.

Due to the new arrangement, the possibility was created of storing both individual pallets and complete aircraft pallets at different temperatures. By integrating a tarp cooling system the shipments, after being checked, can be cooled (again) at an accelerated pace. The presence of acknowledged inspection locations of, for example, PD, KCB and nVWA mean that nearly all transactions can occur under one roof. Yet the largest advantage remains the direct platform connection. Airline companies and their freight handlers can unload complete aircraft pallets, so-called ULDs, at the back of the craft, optimising the cooling chain. This does not just result in a better checking of the temperature, but is also an advantage regarding time.

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