Japan Airlines has expanded its online and offline handing contracts to Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) for its cargo operations in Europe.

The agreement will see WFS providing cargo handling services in Liege for Japan Airlines’ Boeing 747 freighters flying in from Tokyo.

In a separate development, Japan Airlines has also extended its offline handling agreement with WFS at Brussels Airport, which sees WFS working closely with the airline’s cargo GSSA partner, J-Air, to coordinate road transport connections for Japan Airlines’ flights from Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and London.    

WFS will also handle pharma cargo — like the COVID-19 vaccines — carried on Japan Airlines’ Brussels-Osaka flights this summer.

Marc Claesen, senior vice president of commercial, Europe Middle East Africa and Australia at WFS, said: “Japan Airlines is a highly valued WFS customer, and we are proud to be extending the work we do for the airline in Europe.”

Tatsusuke Osakabe, regional manager of cargo and mail, France, Spain and Belgium at Japan Airlines, added: “We are very happy to expand JAL’s European partnership with WFS, which responds well to our requests, such as for the high quality handling of vaccines in Brussels and our requirements for time definite handling of large volumes in Liege.” 

WFS is handling the vaccine shipments at the dedicated pharma zone in its new 250,000 tonne capacity cargo terminal at Brussels Airport.

WFS noted that it has invested heavily to provide pharma facilities for its airline and forwarding clients including 15 dedicated pharma facilities in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Barcelona, Brussels, Cape Town, Copenhagen, Cork, Dublin, Frankfurt, Johannesburg, London, Madrid, Miami, New York JFK, and Paris, which are all either IATA CEIV or Good Distribution Practice (GDP) certified or compliant.