The Kales Group is planning on setting up new general sales agent (GSA) offices in Tel Aviv and in the Middle East next year.

The firm’s chief executive officer, Peter Kales (pictured) tells Air Cargo Week that these locations and continued growth in the US and Canada are its targets for 2016.

He says in 2015 Kales performed well in terms of volumes and saw a four per cent increase compared to last year. “Our biggest growth this year has been in Italy, but also the Nordics has improved substantially again after two slow years,” Kales says.

Kales says the GSA found all markets difficult last year, especially the first six months, but in the second half of the year it saw a recovery.

The GSA is already tendering on a few new contracts and expects this to materialise in Europe mainly, but also across North America, both in the US and Canada.

It faces challenges though Kales explains: “Challenges are the usual ones – additional new capacity and low price policies, but we expect the overall drop of fuel prices will increase buying power, and consequently demand for airfreight volumes, especially in e-commerce, which is growing month by month with large volumes.”

Kales does not expect further GSA consolidation in Europe, but says in the Far East this is just starting.

He feels that the industry will continue to grow long term along with the continued growth of the Kales Group, which he explains will try to increase its market position where possible.

In October last year, Saudia Cargo appointed Kales as its GSA in Canada, which became effective from 1 November 2015.

Saudia operates three weekly Boeing 777 bellyhold flights from Toronto to Jeddah and Riyadh and several widebody and freighter connections in Middle East, Africa and Asia. Saudi also have the option to connect to a weekly Boeing 747 Freighter from New York.

In August last year, Kales also won business in China when Xiamen Airlines appointed it as its GSA, to represent the carrier on three weekly direct services from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to Xiamen with the Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.