TNT is launching a five-times weekly B737-400 freighter service between Venice and its Liege airhub in Belgium.
The company said the addition of Venice to its international air network was intended to benefitexporters and importers trading with northeast Italy that need guaranteed next-day delivery,flexibility, and late collections.
The Veneto region, whose capital is Venice, is home to a dense network of export-orientedcompanies, most of which are small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). With the new airconnection, TNT further strengthens its service to SMEs in Europe’s ‘Blue Banana’ economicregion.
The morning flight from Liege arrives at Venice Airport Marco Polo (VCE) at 06.00 CET andcontinues on to Ljubljana in Slovenia before returning to Liege. Five weekly flights from Athens toLiege will stop in Venice on the northbound leg. They depart Venice at 23.00 CET, an advantage forcustomers who require late pick-up and next-day delivery.
To ensure smooth connections between air and road operations, the company has opened a new airgateway located at the existing TNT Marcon depot, near Venice. It is TAPA-certified and can handleup to 10 air freight containers (or ULDs) with a loading capacity of 2,000 kg each.
Opened in 2013, TNT’s Marcon depot uses advanced automated scanning and sorting equipment. FromFebruary 2015, the air gateway and the depot will use a new, fully automated sorting machine, whichwill speed up the sorting of export shipments by two hours. This equipment is being rolled outacross TNT Italy depots.
TNT has been active in Venice since 1984. The Marcon depot employs 90 people and covers morethan 3,700sqm. It manages domestic shipments through 26 distribution vehicles and six ‘mototopi’,the motor barges used to transport goods to and from Venice’s lagoon and historic centre.
Now that the air gateway is open, TNT said the facility would function as a model intermodaltransport hub in a logistically challenging area.
