There has been a lot of talk lately about cargo transport for Sicilian fruits and vegetables, especially for that grown in the south-east of the island. Classic carriers (shipping and couriers) provide excellent support to those companies in need of air cargo transport.
Control tower at the Fontanarossa airport
New airlines such as Flydubai have recently started flying on the Fontanarossa airport in Catania, a perfect testimony of just how much the local production sector is thriving. "Sicily" must become synonym with its excellent produce, which goes beyond the commodities available from the rest of the Mediterranean basin (with which the country cannot compete when it comes to prices due to health and labor reasons).
Freight terminal at the Catania airport
SAC - Società di gestione dell'Aeroporto di Catania (with 10 million passengers a year, the largest terminal in southern Italy) has always welcomed new stimuli from local entrepreneurs for a series of facilities that attract the business world. Starting with intermodal connections featuring road/rail/ship/air transport: the airport, port and interporto are not only connected via motorway, railway and underground links, but they are also close to each other. What is more, Catania airport is part of EDI, the customs circuit that can activate standard procedures part of international protocols in case of import-export with extra-EU countries.
"We're open to requests from airlines operating in our terminal as well as regarding the trading needs in our catchment area, i.e. central-eastern Sicily. We welcome initiatives such as that from Flydubai as well as those coming from producers and traders wanting to export tomatoes, grapes and other goods by air. Catania can deal not only with hold cargo but also with structured cargo," explained Salvo Pilvirenti (in the photo), terminal manager at the Catania Fontanarossa airport.
"We currently work with Flydubai, Alitalia, Turkish, Air Malta, Air France and Lufthansa. TNT and DHL are 'all cargo' with their own fleet, while SDA works with Mistral (Poste Italiane). Femar is our forwarder."
E-commerce has changed a lot of things over the past few years and SAC has managed to remain on top of the logistics thanks to its work with couriers. Catania is a modern dynamic terminal able of keeping up to speed with all the changes globalisation requires and demands. A 3% growth is expected for 2018, i.e. 6,900 tons in total (6,700 tons handled in 2017).
In addition, SAC will soon be equipped with new controlled-temperature units suitable for all food products.
"We're very pleased to work with Sicilian produce, which we know is among the best in the world. We'd like to stress that the term 'Sicily' must go hand in hand with the term 'quality' and the international market must learn that."