Airlines

LATAM Cargo starts construction of new perishable hub in Guarulhos

LATAM Cargo is beefing up its cool chain infrastructure and improving its overall perishable service by investing in a new 17,620 square feet ‘Perishable Hub’ in Guarulhos, Brazil.

The temperature-controlled facility will be ready to operate for the peak season of 2019 and it will increase the carrier’s cold storage capacity by 33 per cent.

As part of its PERISHABLE project, LATAM Cargo Brazil has started the construction of a cooler facility in Guarulhos to offer more capacity and a more reliable connection service for the increasing perishable volumes being exported from Latin America to the world.

Coolers will make up 8,880 square feet (50 per cent of the space) of the hub. The facility will include two areas: one storage cooler of 5,242 sqaure feet set at 32-36ºF, and other with 3,638 square feet set at 36-55ºF for storage and re-palletising purposes.

Also, the system has the capacity to increase the temperature in any of its coolers up to 77ºF in case there is a specific perishable that request a different temperature range.

Through the use of these coolers, LATAM Cargo will be able to fulfill all needs of the main perishable products exported by the region: salmon, asparagus, mango, cherries, berries, southern hake and flowers, which individually have the need to be stored at different temperature ranges.

“Building a new cooler facility focused on connecting perishable traffic in our main hub enables us to boost our strategic position. We can now offer our perishable customers a growing number of O-D pairs while maintaining the high quality standards associated with our value proposition.

“Furthermore, the increased flexibility gained with this facility enables us to work on a more efficient fashion,” said LATAM Cargo chief executive offier, Andrés Bianchi.

One of the main benefits of having this facility is that LATAM Cargo will be able to reduce the time exposition of the cargo, since the re-palletising process will be done under a temperature-controlled environment.

In addition, with all the cargo stored at the same location, the preparation and transportation process to the aircraft will be more efficient. As an added value, the time the perishable products are out of the temperature-controlled area is minimized, thus maintaining the freshness of the cargo longer.

About 45 per cent of LATAM Cargo’s volumes are perishable shipments and currently 14 per cent of these shipments –more than 24,000 tonnes – transit through GRU. Salmon, fruit and asparagus are the most transported perishables.

As a result of an upward trend in the transportation of perishables and with a commitment to evolve with the needs of our customers, the Company continuously seeks and implements new tools and processes to help maintain the freshness of this cargo.

“We are very excited to share this investment with our customers as it will greatly benefit them by providing a more robust alternative to continue expanding the perishable exports’ volume from Latin America to the world,” said LATAM Cargo South America commercial vice president, Claudio Torres.

With a network of more than 140 destinations –only in 2018 a total of 32 new routes were opened – Guarulhos has become a strategic hub for LATAM Cargo thanks to its connectivity between Latin America and the world.

The new ‘Perishable Hub’ will benefit much of the perishable cargo carried from and within the region, such as the goods transported to Miami, London, Madrid and Paris, among others.

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