China Southern Airlines Cargo and Air France KLM Martinair Cargo Intensify Strategic Cooperation

China Southern Airlines Cargo and Air France KLM Martinair Cargo agreed to sign a new Memorandum of Understanding to further strengthen and shape their strategic cargo cooperation.

Marcel de Nooijer, Executive Vice President of Air France – KLM Martinair Cargo, said:

“We continuously want to create more value to our customers, and in doing so we are very excited to deepen the cooperation with our strategic partner China Southern Cargo. This new phase is good news for our customers.”

Zhao Fengsheng, Senior Vice President of China Southern Cargo, said:

“Signing of this MoU leads to a new phase of cooperation between us, we anticipate concrete result coming out of this.”

In September 2015 China Southern Airlines Cargo (CZ Cargo) and Air France KLM Martinair Cargo (AFKLMP Cargo) signed a MoU focused on strategic cooperation between the two parties. The airlines share the ambition to link their respective route networks, enabling them to offer expanded cargo services to their respective customers.

The ambition for the next four years is to jointly investigate and exploit the available opportunities in the air cargo market. To achieve this the airlines want to:

    Expand their existing cooperation and build on mutual experience to connect the cargo business in China, Europe and beyond markets. This will also enable them to continue to use their membership of the SkyTeam Cargo Alliance to maximum advantage.

    Connect CZ’s strong position in China and Asia Pacific region with AFKLMP’s strong position in Europe, Africa and the Trans-Atlantic area, possibly by sharing capacity and space agreements.

    Combine CZ and AFKLMP Cargo networks (belly and main deck product) to offer high frequency services via their hubs at Guangzhou, Shanghai, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol.

    Provide easy access to each other’s capacity within this combined network cooperation and explore each other’s ground service facilities at home base hubs, which might support quick interline transfers (one roof concept).

    Increase Mail and Express business opportunities between China, Europe and the USA.

Ultimately this could lead to an integrated commercial and operational cargo cooperation model (Joint Venture) between Europe and China.