SUCCESS STORIES IN BELGIUM
INTERVIEW WITH
Geert Keirens, Director
COMPANY
Air Cargo Belgium REGION
Flanders Founded: 2016 Location: Machelen Number of employees: 9 Turnover (2019): EUR 700,000 Prizes, awards: BRUcargo Award – Brussels Airport Aviation Awards 2017 Website: www.aircargobelgium.be
Air Cargo Belgium is a cluster organization bringing together 150 companies, meaning it covers around 99% of all air cargo traffic going through Brussels Airport. “Our main goal is to build a strong community, with the focus on innovation, on niche markets, on becoming the most attractive, innovative and successful logistics platform in the region and Europe,” says Geert Keirens, Director at Air Cargo Belgium. “We are the first to operate such a strong community with so many different actors involved on such a large scale. We conduct joint projects not only to make the industry more efficient, but also to enable business growth for all our members. This means having more volumes handled at Brussels Airport, while mainly focusing on high-value goods, something that is more important to us than tonnes,” adds Keirens.
RELIABLE SUPPLY CHAINS Examples of such high-value goods for Air Cargo Belgium include pharmaceutical products in particular, as well as e-commerce, live animals and perishable goods. “The pharma industry in Belgium is very strong and these companies need excellent supply chain and distribution possibilities.
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“We are currently seeing double-digit growth in pharma cargo volumes every year, compared to the mere 3-4% growth in normal airline cargo business.” We have about 40 different warehouses at the airport where all the processes are streamlined and pharmaceutical goods can be handled and stored in optimal temperature conditions. In this way, we encourage the industry to maintain its distribution and production operations in Belgium and use the logistics facilities we provide for them,” says the Director. This specialization seems to be paying off, Geert Keirens notes. “Once you have a strong reputation, business follows. We are currently seeing double-digit growth in pharma cargo volumes every year, compared to the mere 3-4% growth in normal airline cargo business.”
TAKING THE LEAD IN INNOVATION One of the innovative projects Air Cargo Belgium is carrying out is the digitization of processes. BRUcloud is an open data-sharing platform from
