December 5 - dnata's cargo operations at its terminal at Dubai World Central-Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) reached record volumes, helped by heavy lift movements in October.
Growth and expansion continued in the month as cargo volumes rose by a record 59 percent. Aircraft movements atDWC also registered 33 percent growth to 280 movements in October against the previous month's frequency.
Stuart Hayman (pictured below), vice president of cargo operations for dnata, says: "Approximately 60 percent of the record volume handled in October through FreightGate-8 at DWC can be classified as 'heavy/outsized/project' cargo, much of it arriving by sea and transferring rapidly through Jebel Ali Port and across the Customs bonded bridge to DWC airport or doing the same in reverse for imports.
"A large proportion of this traffic remains in the sea containers which are then loaded straight on to wide-bodied freighter aircraft. The most common aircraft types used to carry this project cargo in to and out of DWC are theBoeing 747 Freighter, Antonov AN124 and Ilyushin IL76. The ample space available at DWC makes it a perfect fit for the movement of heavy, outsized project cargo and we see this segment of the market growing as a user of the airport over the coming months."
The dnata-operated air cargo terminal - known as FreightGate-8 - which handles local and sea-air export and import cargo as well as transit cargo at DWC, handled 11,737 tonnes of cargo in October, the largest volume handled in any month since operations began when the airport opened in June 2010. This achievement puts activity levels at the relatively new FreightGate-8 on parwith other more established dnata cargo terminals at Dubai International Airport in terms of monthly cargo tonnage handled.
