NOATUM LOGISTICS SPAIN TALKS AIRFREIGHT …
This month World Cargo Vision speaks to Enrique Montes Feliu, 42, Air Procurement Manager of Noatum Logistics Spain.
WCV: Enrique, could you tell us about the history of Noatum group and how it is now established?
Noatum Group was established in 1963 as Marmedsa (Maritima del Mediterraneo). Its almost 60 years of existence were successfully dedicated to the shipping industry, first on the Spanish Mediterranean Coast, in a later phase all over the country, and constantly in 4 continents.
Noatum Logistics Spain, S.A.U. (NL) belongs to the logistics division of Noatum Group, which is one of the three sectors of the group along with maritime and port services. Last year Noatum Logistics completed the acquisition of MIQ Logistics, which lead us to develop our international strategy, having since then presence as Noatum Group in 28 countries. (total of 134 locations). Logistics division employs 1700 of the 2600 group employees, operating 364,000 shipments a year.
WCV: What licenses and accreditation does Noatum hold?
Noatum Logistics is certified with ISO 9001:2008, 14001, 18001, AEO, IATA, FETEIA, GDP (chemicals and pharmaceuticals transportation), Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, Business Alliance for Secure Commerce, Achilles (FPAL, REPRO and DOCUPLUS), Efficiency Network (Barcelona). NL was honoured in 2019 at the Efficiency Excellence Network Awards in the category ‘People, key factor for the brand consolidation’.
WCV: What are Noatum’ s core air freight products and services?
We have BSAs and airline contracts to more than 120 destinations all over the world, which places us in the top 15 export cargo agents for the airfreight export market in Spain (13th in 2019). On imports, we run scheduled consolidations from China to Spain on our own BSAs and occasionally from India.
WCV: Please give us an overview of your airfreight market.
With the Covid-19 ongoing crisis, the situation is complicated worldwide, and if the air market was already in decline with respect to 2018, I think that currently (May 2020) approximately 80% of air routes have been canceled, leading to an exceptional situation in which, for example, freight price from China to Europe has climbed higher than the price of a barrel of petroleum.
On 2019 we moved almost 3.5 million tons just in export from Spain, which allows us to keep our BSA agreements with the most important companies operating in Spain (IAG & Qatar Airways mainly).
Regarding the import, we managed more than 2.7 million tons in the last 12 months, including our trade lanes of pharmaceuticals, fashion & retail and machinery spares, so we can consolidate and combine dense and volumetric cargo to optimize the ULD’s we handle.
WCV: Can you describe any noteworthy airfreight projects Noatum handled recently ?
We are the appointed in-house forwarder by some of the most important fashion and retail companies (Pronovias, Punto Fa, Punto Roma, Inditex, etc.). Our company has a dedicated team for developing fashion and retail as a vertical product, adding value and know-how in all processes.
We were nominated for the Metro projects in Medellin, Mexico and Santiago de Chile, and we also recently helped Audi to establish their factory in the North of China, close to Beijing. During that time, we arranged hundreds of CKD shipments following strictly the JIT procedure which runs the automotive sector.
Also, we have been arranging AOG shipments for Lufthansa, and Airbus projects from their mills in Spain for assembling in Korea. Lastly, apart from our usual pharma traffics, we have also been chartering medical supplies from China to Spain, to deal with this special situation.
WCV: Can you share Noatum’s goals and expansions plans over the next 5 years?
We are already positioned in strategic countries, so we aim to reach an organic growth and continue developing our specialized trade lanes for every kind of transport. Probably the most important challenge is the usual one, the digitalization of the company. We must focus on developing this transformation even faster than the market, and this is always a big risk but it’s also the gap where business opportunities can be found. We have to do this worldwide: a big task in which we are already progressing, involving many countries and specialized departments, and there is no other way to achieve a big result for our development.
WCV: How would you describe NAP in a few words?
This is the first initiative to create a network involving only agents from the air cargo world.
The present and future in overall business is to specialize in each sector, and NAP is a network that has already proved it is a step forward with every division and sub-industry group created and developed.
WCV: Would you give us your thoughts about NAP network and the quality of its partners?
It is really good to be supported by professionals with many years of experience from whom you always learn, as well as to have young people pushing hard to develop every opportunity the network has to offer. We appreciate the group debating about specific topics of this industry, the partnership agreements and also being allowed to receive the opinion of several airlines, which allow us to consider usual topics from a different point of view than we –the forwarders– use to think about.
This month World Cargo Vision speaks to Enrique Montes Feliu, 42, Air Procurement Manager of Noatum Logistics Spain.
