Jettainer has signed a deal with Brussels Airlines to control and maintain its fleet of unit load devices (ULD) from the spring of 2017, as it continues its consistent growth.
Jettainer will look after a fleet of about 1,000 ULDs over the next five years and it will set up a ULD controller at Brussels Airport. The deal was signed on 28 October, on the final day of The International Air Cargo Association Air Cargo Forum in Paris.
Jettainer sales director, Thorsten Riekert (pictured left, with Brussels Airlines vice president global cargo, Alban Francois) says: “We’re continuing to expand our customer portfolio with Brussels Airlines and are therefore pressing ahead with our growth course.
“Our excellent customer services and unique innovative solutions in ULD management are clearly making themselves felt in the market place.”
Speaking after the signing in Paris, Riekert, joined by head of marketing and PR, Martin Kraemer, explains Jettainer’s success to Air Cargo Week. Kraemer says he is amazed how consistent growth has been, and the strategy is to double in size by 2020.
“It is amazing how consistently we are growing, not in big steps, it’s not hectic. It is a really stable line up, which on the one thing is really good for us and on the other hand it is really good for the team as a healthy and steady growth can be taken up by the team,” he adds.
For 2017, Riekert tells ACW that Jettainer is looking into Asia, saying: “Asia is a different mentality and it will take some more time to acquire new customers there but we are in very promising discussions with quite a number of airlines.”
Jettainer has been introducing innovations such as intelligent containers it is developing with Lufthansa Industry Solutions, which it says will accelerate maintenance and control procedures while the increased transparency will make it easier to determine who was responsible for damaging ULDs.
Riekert adds that the intelligent containers will have GPS, which he believes will significantly reduce the rate of missing units, while sensors know if the unit has been mistreated. “This will get transferred to our data warehouse and this will allow the customer to talk to the ground handler who mistreated equipment.”
Kraemer says the aim is not finger pointing, but having the ability to show who it was should make them be more careful should make people be more careful as they know they are being watched.
Riekert says this was the idea of the JettCare programme too, which creates awareness of the value of ULDs, to benefit the whole industry, not just the customer and Jettainer: “If we are able to generate a change in behaviour it is not only good for us but it is good for everybody.”
