E-commerce, community initiatives drive record cargo growth at Schiphol

Schiphol Airport has worked to establish itself as one of Europe’s premier e-commerce hubs. Now, with the Dutch airport’s new Compliance Checker program, Schiphol officials say they hope to reach even loftier goals of eliminating common data errors.

Launched in May, the Compliance Checker program boosts e-commerce flows through the airport by detecting data discrepancies and customs compliance mistakes. The airport now says those efforts are paying off, with a record 866,713 tonnes handled from January to June 2017, an 8.7 percent rise, year-over-year. For June alone, cargo hit a monthly record of 148,765 tonnes, up 9.8 percent, y-o-y.

“The Schiphol Cargo Community has worked on a series of new initiatives this year, which demonstrate our commitment to delivering safe and efficient cargo products, and our excellent first-half-year performance is the result of this collaboration,” said Jonas van Stekelenburg, head of cargo at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol.

Schiphol also announced that its pharmaceutical traffic was up for the first half, due, in part, to its Pharma Gateway Amsterdam program.

Europe is Schiphol’s largest market, with June 2017 inbound volumes up 25 percent, compared with June 2016, and outbound figures up an impressive 41.8 percent over the same period.

Other notable trade lanes were Far East outbound, up 15 percent over June 2016, and inbound Far East, reaching 26,511 tonnes in the same month, up 14.1 percent, y-o-y. Europe inbound figures for January to June 2017 were 60,320 tonnes, up 29.1 percent, y-o-y, with Europe outbound figures at 61,641 tonnes, up 39.2 percent, y-o-y.

Latin America’s turnaround maintained its irregular pace, with inbound volumes for January to June 2017 up 31.4 percent, y-o-y, while Europe to Latin America traffic was down 6.3 percent, y-o-y, in the first half. That route, however, picked up momentum for the month of June 2017, rising 6.1 percent over June 2016.

Trade with the Middle East figures for the first half of 2017 saw inbound fall 4.4 percent over 2016, with outbound figures to the region for the first half of the year up 7 percent, y-o-y.

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