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Mar 22, 2021 (newstodate): On October 13, 2020, Avinor sent out a Request for Information to stakeholders in the seafood related industries with October 30, 2020, as deadline for signing up for participation in the process.
17 stakeholders filed their response, and Avinor has today summarized the result of the RFI as well as its plans for the process to optimize the utilization of scarce land resources at Oslo Airport.
-One common trait in most of the responses is the need for a cool ULD storage facility to avoid outdoor seafood parking during summer temperatures and keep an unbroken seafood cool chain at Oslo Airport. This was indeed pointed at by almost all respondents, says Bent Skatvedt, at today's NFF digital conference.
-Avinor has no intentions for investing in coming new seafood cargo facilities, but will instead invite interested parties to participate in a tender process, opening soon, to place bids on the future optimization of the areas dedicated to the needs of the air cargo industry, says Mr Skatvedt.
Already in 2016, Avinor announced plans for construction of a large automated terminal capable of handling up to 250,000 tonnes of seafood shipments, building on cooperation with investors and partners in the seafood industry and providers of seafood air logistics.
The project was, however, shelved in 2019, and in May 2019 the designed partner to operate the terminal, WFS abrogated the contract.
Since then, the industry has been left in a vacuum as to the future layout of the seafood handling infrastructure at Oslo Airport, while volumes have exceeded the capacity at several of the existing seafood handling providers Roadfeeders, Spirit Air Cargo Handling, Gardermoen Perishables Center, Menzies and DHL.
With its latest initiative, Avinor has shelved the idea of construction of an own seafood terminal, inviting now instead the stakeholders in and around the industry to take control of the future development - as well as shouldering the responsibility for the investments.