Worldwide Flight Services’ (WFS) North American operations have made a successful start to 2018 by winning and renewing cargo handling, ramp and passenger services contracts with airline customers at eight U.S. stations.
At Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport, WFS won the freighter handling contract for Turkish Airlines’ new twice-weekly flights to Istanbul. The agreement extends WFS’ existing relationship with the airline. New cargo handling contracts have also been awarded to WFS by Aer Lingus in Seattle for its new four times weekly flights to Dublin, starting in May, while, in Miami, Ethiopian Airlines has chosen to partner with WFS to support its new route from Addis Ababa. WFS expects to handle some 5,200 tonnes of freight per annum for the airline.
DHL Air has also renewed contracts with WFS in both Kansas City and St. Louis.
Three new ramp handling contracts have been awarded to WFS since the start of the year in Newark. All three-year contracts, these see WFS now serving Austrian Airlines, Primera Air and Swiss International Air Lines at the airport. Swiss currently operates seven services a week to and from Newark, while Austrian operates five. Primera Air is also launching seven services per week in April.
WFS is also seeing strong demand for its passenger services in the U.S. Starting in April, it will serve passengers travelling on LOT Polish Airlines’ new weekly Warsaw- New York JFK-Warsaw flights as well as those flying onboard Allegiant Air’s new six flights a week from Sarasota. And, it’s not just in the U.S. where WFS is enjoying new contract success. In neighbouring Canada, it has signed a three-year contract with Lufthansa to handle some 6,000 tonnes a year onboard its services from Frankfurt.
Ray Jetha, WFS’ SVP, Sales and Business Development, commented: “2017 was a very positive year for our stations in the U.S. and it is pleasing to see this continuing since the start of 2018 with new contracts being awarded to us from both existing and new airline customers across all of our services. Most of these latest contracts are extensions of working relationships we have with these airline customers at other points in our network so we especially welcome their confidence in our ability to provide the same superior service, safety and security at more of the airports they serve across the U.S.”
