In April 2012, the President of ACFA issued a statement for the attention of air cargo professionals.
Dear members, dear freight professionals, dear friends,
The last few weeks have been particularly tough for all freight professionals and, by extension, for our whole national logistics chain.
While Paris-Charles de Gaulle had just restored its position as the European leader in cargo with 2.1 million tons of freight and mail operated, we have been struck by an unprecedented sanitary and economic crisis. Facing this, we were able to preserve our unity and prove to the world the extreme resilience of our business through the strength of our community.
All of us: customs, civil aviation, freight forwarders, handlers, express operators and airlines, at our level, have been mobilized to ensure the continuity of air freight, and thus the continuity of an essential economic activity for our country. This unprecedented crisis is a reminder that cargo is a fundamental part of the global economy, particularly in the supply of sanitary products. Nevertheless, it remains today too poorly known and sometimes questioned …
It remains essential to continue to transport the essential items for French industry, in particular fresh, pharmaceutical and sanitary products – essential to the national fight against the epidemic – or components for maintenance or industrial production.
Once again, all of this was only possible thanks to the extraordinary mobilization of the players in our cargo community, who are working every day to ensure the performance of this activity and are, today more than ever, mobilized to contribute to the fight against the pandemic and to safeguarding jobs.
Thus, through ACFA, Groupe ADP, TFL Overseas, SYCAFF, Customs and IATA, all the players have joined their forces to implement emergency measures to ensure a clear communication and make aware of the issues the State services in order to maintain the continuity of the cargo’s activity.
The main measures that have been pushed by our Cargo community have been :
- Facilitation of air routes dedicated exclusively to cargo in order to counterbalance the decline of passenger movements.
- The air bridge between France and China for the transportation of medical equipment to make up for the European shortage of resources for combating and protecting against COVID-19.
- The steps taken, from the beginning of the containment measures, by the French players in the air freight logistics chain with the State Services to defend the maintenance of this activity.
- Raising the awareness of State services on the need to maintain a high level of security in the airport cargo area in order to protect it from any criminal actions.
- Actions to support the cash flow of companies by the agreement of State services for payment facilities: deferment or staggering of the payment of credit slips.
- Encouraging greater use of the digitization of transport documents within operators in order to limit the exchange of paper documents.
