Dubai's dnata says DWC air cargo up by 700%

Dubai's dnata has said air cargo volumes rose 700 percent during the last financial year at its newest terminal, FreightGate-8, located at Dubai World Central-Al Maktoum International Airport.

The dnata-operated air cargo terminal, which opened in June 2010, currently handles local and sea-air export and import cargo as well as transit cargo at DWC.

In 2011-2012 the dnata team handled a total of 127,665 tonnes of air cargo, while the total number of active cargo flights handled by the dnata team was 2,832 for the financial year, a 600 percent growth compared to the previous period.

One of the most recent highlights included a purpose-built gas turbine being flown to Nigeria. With a total weight of 95 tonnes, it was the heaviest single piece of cargo ever handled by any of the dnata FreightGate cargo terminals.

In response to the growing volume, dnata said it has steadily been increasing and improving its fleet of equipment to service the DWC operation.

"It has been a year of records being set and then just as quickly being exceeded," said Stuart Hayman, vice president of cargo operations for dnata.

“We measure our volumes for each shift (which covers a 12 hour period) and we often handle volumes in excess of 1,000 tonnes (or one million kilogrammes) in these 12 hour shifts."

dnata currently handles a wide variety of freighter aircraft types at DWC, operated by 36 different airline customers.

In addition to the aircraft flights, dnata’s FreightGate-8 also handles another 35 airlines which operate truck flights.