Polar Air to switch European hubs

Polar Air to switch European hubs

   Polar Air Cargo said it plans to move its European hub from Liege, Belgium, to Amsterdam, The Netherlands, in the fourth quarter. Polar operates three weekly flights from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam to Chicago and New York.

   Polar will transfer to Schiphol four weekly flights based that serve New York, two weekly flights to Chicago and two weekly flights to Atlanta. The Fear East will be served with six weekly flights to Seoul and Taipei, with connections to Tokyo and Hong Kong. Polar will serve the Middle East and India with two weekly flights from Amsterdam to Dubai, Bombay and Madras.

   The move is a reversal of sorts for Polar, a subsidiary of Atlas Air Worldwide, which shifted its European hub for India service from Amsterdam to Liege in early October 2003. At the time, Polar said Liege was an ideal facility due to its central location, hours of operation and access to Europe’s road network.

   Hendrik Falk, a vice president of sales at Polar, said using Schiphol “makes sense from an operational and financial standpoint. Operationally, we expect to enhance our service quality considerably thanks to the well-developed infrastructure at Schiphol Airport. Financially, our projections show that the move will result in both decreased overall cost and increased revenue because of Amsterdam’s central location to Europe’s main air cargo markets.”