newstodate.aero
Feb 10, 2017 (newstodate): While still rather small in volume, cargo at the Faroe Islands' Vagar Airport continued the positive growth during the last quarter of 2016.
A total of 39 tonnes of cargo was handled at the airport in January 2017, an increase by 6.1 percent, y-o-y, and mail volumes were also up 4.8 percent, to a total of 20 tonnes.
2016 ended with an over-all decline in cargo volumes by 6.4 percent to 487 tonnes, but a recovery was seen during the last three months of the year.
The scarcity of cargo capacity on the passenger flights between the Faroe Islands and Denmark has been somewhat remedied as Atlantic Airways is now operating Airbus A320, instead of Airbus A319, on the trunk route from the last days of 2016, and SAS will also bring in new capacity with the opening of flights from April 27, 2017, between Copenhagen Airport and Vagar Airport offering 12 weekly services also with Airbus A320 Family aircraft.
But in 2017, the focus is also on the prospects of launch of a freighter service to provide uplift capacity to the country's growing volumes of seafood exports.
Today, Faroese seafood exporters are mainly sending their shipments by sea to the UK for uplift from London Heathrow and other airports, but with the opening of a new large production plant by the end of January 2017, the leading seafood exporter Bakkafrost is considering options for establishing freighter flights to achieve improved logistics solutions.
Bakkafrost alone now produces around 56,000 tonnes of fresh salmon, and adding volumes handled for other producers the total Bakkafrost production will reach between 60-70,000 tonnes in 2017.
A total of 39 tonnes of cargo was handled at the airport in January 2017, an increase by 6.1 percent, y-o-y, and mail volumes were also up 4.8 percent, to a total of 20 tonnes.
2016 ended with an over-all decline in cargo volumes by 6.4 percent to 487 tonnes, but a recovery was seen during the last three months of the year.
The scarcity of cargo capacity on the passenger flights between the Faroe Islands and Denmark has been somewhat remedied as Atlantic Airways is now operating Airbus A320, instead of Airbus A319, on the trunk route from the last days of 2016, and SAS will also bring in new capacity with the opening of flights from April 27, 2017, between Copenhagen Airport and Vagar Airport offering 12 weekly services also with Airbus A320 Family aircraft.
But in 2017, the focus is also on the prospects of launch of a freighter service to provide uplift capacity to the country's growing volumes of seafood exports.
Today, Faroese seafood exporters are mainly sending their shipments by sea to the UK for uplift from London Heathrow and other airports, but with the opening of a new large production plant by the end of January 2017, the leading seafood exporter Bakkafrost is considering options for establishing freighter flights to achieve improved logistics solutions.
Bakkafrost alone now produces around 56,000 tonnes of fresh salmon, and adding volumes handled for other producers the total Bakkafrost production will reach between 60-70,000 tonnes in 2017.