Liege Airport (LGG) is pitching to become Europe’s e-commerce airport as the Belgian cargo hub facility builds on its growing volumes, location and facilities.

“We are Liege. We are the ecommerce powerhouse of Europe. Full stop”, Torsten Wefers, vice president, sales and marketing, said in an interview with Asia Cargo News, adding that part of this is the further development of Liege as a natural export centre for a range of products as well.

Much of the bid lies on a September conference Liege will host which will bring together freight forwarders and airlines to try to tackle, among others, the issue of trade balance.

Numerically it will not be a big, big event according to Wefers, but a high-level one as the goal is for C and D level attendees. Ecommerce, though, is just one part of Liege’s usefulness to air cargo.

Last year it moved more than 1 million tons of cargo, making it one of the top five European cargo airports.

Its target is to double that plus to 2.3 million tons by 2040, something it is confident of meeting and is already well on the way to doing.

“Year to date, we are already plus 12% in terms of cargo volumes,” Wefers said.

This will be done by a dual strategy. One part is the major airlines already there, such as Challenge Airlines, Qatar Airways Cargo, MSC Air Cargo, Silk Way West Airlines and recent joiner Turkish Cargo, who will be encouraged and supported to grow their activities at Liege, explained Frederic Brun, head of commercial cargo and logistics.

This prong has a China focus.

“We see that we have today a big number of carriers coming from and to China. We are obviously working on further big names,” Brun said.

The second part of the strategy is getting new airlines to be based in Liege. Here, both Wefers and Brun are much more private.

Again, there is a China focus, with the plan to attract two more Chinese airlines, SF Airlines and Hong Kong Air Cargo Carrier, to go alongside Cainiao, who is already in Liege. There are also tie-ups with Shenzhen, Wuhan and Ezhou airports.

In terms of what Liege moves the products mix is strong. On top of its perishables base, flowers from Africa are a key part of business, and there are others.

“We see a lot of new verticals being present. You see engines parts, aeronautics, also pharma is coming big time,” said Brun. Ecommerce, of course, can’t be forgotten. “Last year we had 436 million parcels,” he added.

The attractions of Liege are big and rely both on it as a facility and what it can offer and where it is.

“We want to show that we are the ecommerce powerhouse in Europe due to the fact that we have this customs facility 24/7, that we have this only cargo approach,” said Wefers.

Unrestricted operations, capacity, services and authorities such as customs are “a very core advantage” he added later.

It’s also a marked contrast to rival airports such as Amsterdam, Paris and Frankfurt which are completely congested in terms of warehouses and slots.

Liege has two passenger flights a day, hardly likely to disrupt or burden cargo, and while it doesn’t have the capacity on some routes competitor airports like Frankfurt and Brussels have, its ability to work non-stop is a core advantage.

Other benefits are being given a 20-year environmental licence allowing for long term perspectives all round and an extension for the secondary runway which will enable it to handle any kind of aircraft.

“We are the right place to develop,” said Wefers. Helping matters is where all these goodies are. On a map, Liege is the centre of what is sometime called the Golden Triangle, with Paris to the west, Frankfurt to the east and Amsterdam to the north. Make it a rectangle and you can bring in London.

Either way, its neighbours are defined by crowded, difficult-to-operate airports with little capacity to grow. And within it, lots of consumers and export industries.

“The location is an advantage,” acknowledged Wefers.

“We are really located close to the big consumer markets. Within a couple of hours, you can reach hundreds of millions of consumers, which makes it interesting for ecommerce.”

By Michael Mackey
Correspondent | Bangkok