Lufthansa Cargo has announced that it is outsourcing general cargo handling at Frankfurt to contract logistics firm, Fiege Air Cargo Logistics GmbH & Co. KG (FACL).

In a July 6 statement, Lufthansa said: “At the Lufthansa Cargo Center (LCC) in Frankfurt, Fiege Air Cargo Logistics (FACL) will take over the operative handling and coordination of inbound and outbound standard shipments in several phases until mid-2021.”

The firm also said the physical cargo handling processes in the LCC had already been “largely outsourced to various external service providers for many years.”

“Our future partner contributes additional expertise in the area of digitalization as well as efficient design and implementation of warehouse processes. At the same time, the new cooperation model will reduce the number of direct interfaces for Lufthansa Cargo, enabling us to make optimum use of the advantages of digitization,” said 

Mohammad Ali Seiraffi, Lufthansa Cargo vice president Handling Frankfurt and Head of the LCC.

He noted that FACL will be an important partner for Lufthansa Cargo in all aspects of physical handling at the Frankfurt hub.

Felix Scherberich, managing director at Fiege committed to helping Lufthansa digitalized cargo handling.

“We look forward to contributing our expertise in digitization to the Lufthansa Cargo Center as part of long-term cooperation. We will help to further enhance the operational quality and synchronise the logistics processes in ground handling with the modernised IT infrastructure of the LCC,” he added.

Lufthansa noted that the planning and control of the cargo processes as well as the overall responsibility for the processes will remain in the hands of Lufthansa Cargo.

The new co-operation, it noted, will not result in any changes for the cargo airline's customers.