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A R C H I V E S

     Ricardo Gonzalez Placer is more of a transportation professional than most people that you’ve met. Before launching a career in air cargo development, this ebullient and engaging Spaniard who hails from Vitoria, a delicious slice of Basque country located near Bilbao on the southern coast of the Iberian peninsula, Don Ricardo, was a master seaman who spent more than 17 years going down to the sea in ships.
     For the record, there are two places called Vitoria that you may or may not know about. One Vitoria is located in Brazil.
     This is about the other Vitoria, the first one, as mentioned earlier that resides 41km south of Bilbao.
     Maybe one reason there is surprise by some people on hearing of Vitoria as a dynamic and growing air cargo hub is because up until the 1980’s Vitoria was a sleepy, quiet hamlet.
     It was in the early 1980’s that it was chosen as the headquarters for the Basque region’s government.
     The airport of Vitoria-Foronda lies just 5km from the center of the city proper.
     Vitoria was founded on the site of a small hamlet called Gasteiz, perched on the top of a hill.
     Sancho el Sabio, king of Navarra and founder of the city chose Gasteiz as a stronghold against Castille and granted the town its charter in 1181.
     Vitoria continued to grow, protected behind the city walls. It had three streets which crossed the hill from north to south, around which the town was laid out in the shape of an almond.
     The structure of the medieval town still remains. In the middle ages, Vitoria was renowned for its craftsmen and merchants whose guilds gave rise to the names of streets.
     At the end of the 18th Century the city began to expand outside its walls.
     During this period the Plaza de Espana was constructed, marking first expansion to the south.
     In the mid-19th century Vitoria expanded towards the south. This area is now the city center and main shopping area.
     A great place to do business and live in a cosmopolitan setting, most of the streets and squares in Vitoria are pedestrianized and contain a large number of sculptures from the Basque Country.
     Vitoria’s city center in fact is very much an open-air art gallery.
     Here you will also find stately mansions, 19th century houses and the new Cathedral.
     Calle Paz is the main shopping street of the city and marks the eastern boundary of the city center.
     Vitoria is situated strategically on the trade routes to most of Southern Europe, Africa and the Middle East.
     Vitoria, Spain is where logisticians such as fast growing DHL and others have set up shop expanding opportunities in several directions all at once in search of local European and expanding, emerging international markets.
     But Vitoria, Spain (27 years, a venue to one of the great annual Summer Jazz Festivals) is about to put itself forward in a major educational and promotional effort toward the Americas.
     VIA is busting out all over this June with a business workshop and what you need to know, vest pocket, right-sized perishables conference in Miami, Florida.
     On June 16-17, VIA brings a relevant, intensive, and compact learning exercise to the Sofitel in Miami, Florida located just a stone’s throw away from Miami International Airport’s main runways where more perishables are transported than at all the other gateways in North America combined.
     Called “Fresh Opportunities II,” the Perishables Logistics Conference held last year at Vitoria gets a second go around in Miami.
     Good timing and right on subject matter, make this get together a definite must-to-attend.
     Also VIA reaching out to the growing perishables market in the Americas, offers a new vision and opportunities to Latin America.
     Vitoria International Airport, the air cargo specialist handled nearly 60,000 tons of cargo during 2002 with more than 60% of that number classified as perishables.
     Contact for the event is David Gasull. Phone: 34 945 14 18 00. Fax: 34 945 14 31 56. e-mail: david.via@airvitoria.com.
     VIA will also host The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) Forum in 2004.
     Spain loves seafood. Don Ricardo, who is the only airport or air cargo executive in the world to hold a master seaman’s certificate, having plied the seven seas as a full fledged Captain of great deep water cargo vessels knows a thing or two about trading patterns.
     Maybe that’s what makes him so interesting.
     More often than not, in his quest to build VIA, from a specialist all cargo gateway operation into a world class address for freight, Don Recardo has acted as much as a matchmaker as anything else.
     In the effort to develop trade, Don Ricardo, just as the MIA conference title implies, uncovers “Fresh Opportunities.”
     “I know the airlines,” he says.
     “They have no problem going to where the air cargo is.”
     If you get the feeling from those words that this is one executive who is not content to sit back and wait for a situation to bite him on the fanny, you are exactly right.
     “Based on my years of shipping cargo , I look to uncover situations and various combinations that can both benefit from air speed and utilize our gateway as part of the process.
     “In any case everything for the shipper, carrier and gateway has to make sense to develop any kind of a long term business relationship.
     “Not that everything has to work at once. I believe in solid foundation and complete connectivity between all parties. The key ingredient in air cargo today is total information. The best surprise is no surprise.
     “Everybody needs to know what to expect.
     “Anybody using our gateway has my personal cell-phone number with the proviso that either myself or somebody standing in for me is available 24/7 for any situation that might arise.
     “Vitoria, (one T and not Victoria, Don Ricardo insists) is wide open to new business and a place where attitude replaces altitude in an atmosphere that success aloft begins on the ground at a place quite capable of handling just about anything.
     “Our business is developing in what might be viewed as unlikely places such as Africa and elsewhere, but these are areas that I know from prior experience can accelerate their growth utilizing air cargo.”
     Servicios Logisticos y de Handling, Decoexsa, was the first private Spanish company to set up business at Vitoria Airport with the construction of a modern perishables terminal.
     Right now the perishables set up at VIA is the second largest of its type in Europe.
     The constant transport development of perishables through Vitoria Airport has allowed thousands of tons of various products including a growing variety of live animals to pass through the gateway from countries such as South Africa, the United States, Canada, Chile, Brazil, Argentina and Mexico.
     From nowhere just a few years ago, VIA is evolving into a major trans-shipment center in southern Europe traffic patterns.
     Built upon professionalism from the ground up, at VIA a highly qualified team of personnel specializes in the extremely demanding and precise logistics involved in the transport of perishables.
     At VIA the process is perfectly coordinated with on the spot efficient customs and health services .
     These and other competitive advantages of the airport, allow a turnaround time of 2 hours from the moment the goods arrive by plane to the time they are delivered to the consignees.
     From VIA an extensive road-feeder network fans out from the Basque country to points all over Europe.
     By truck, goods can be delivered to the main Central European marketplaces in 12 hours or less.
     These shipping times, unprecedented in this sector, mean that perishables from field to table arrive in optimum condition with less spoilage.
     Greater value in getting goods to market, enables efficient and profitable operation only available from a specialist.
     “Call it niche marketing or specialized handling but the fact is, that the VIA perishables alternative to and from other gateways affords even the small shipper an opportunity to be a “big fish” here with all the collateral attention in getting goods to market that the name implies.”
     At VIA, DECOEXSA carries out customs clearance duties around the clock seven days a week.
     The company manages the live animal operation at the airport and offers importers and exporters comprehensive logistics services, including transport and tracking in special refrigerated trucks to the whole of Europe.
     The DECOEXSA terminal has the following characteristics:
     9,500 m2 dedicated to perishable products; 4,000 m2 of temperature-controlled warehouses; 3,500 m2 car park, 900 m2 for the assembly and disassembly of pallet platforms plus 500 m2 of fully computerized administrative offices.
     The DECOEXSA operation also includes 240 m2 for making trays both inside and in the open air; 16 roller ways with 156 positions for aircraft loading trays, 9 bays for loading trucks (1,500 m2), 6 air side doors and 6 refrigeration chambers.
     Operability, intermodality and first-class aeronautical infrastructure offered by Vitoria Airport to companies specializing in integrated services, has attracted two large international companies who have set up part of their strategic operations in Europe at VIA.
     Integrators EAT-DHL and TNT and Perishables specialist (DECOEXSA), who also provide general cargo services, are joined by Iberia, the Spanish flag airline, with a cargo handling operation at VIA from which it offers ramp and terminal handling service for all kinds of goods.
     Iberia’s team in Vitoria operates the machinery required to unload big all-cargo aircraft.
     Two lifting platforms with a capacity of 11,000 kg, plus one lifting platform for 3,600 kg. are part of the total ground support package offered by IB at VIA.
     “We recognize that business is challenged right now with operators needing to receive every possible return on investment of time and resources. But there are also opportunities for those companies who will just take the time to continue their search for new business.
     “The VIA advantage is real and ready for those who are focused on the future.”