FedEx looks on the bright side in Paris

Despite the global economic downturn, FedEx continued to tap growth markets served by its Paris Roissy-CDG hub.

"One of the virtues of the globalisation of trade is that when one market slows, others remain stable or are even growing, " said Alain Chaillé, FedEx's VP for southern Europe.

"If we look at the European market, some of our major customers are, perhaps, shipping less as consumption slackens, but we can point to regions, such as Catalonia and eastern Europe, where demand is buoyant." Last month, FedEx replaced an ATR72 on its Barcelona-CDG route with an A310 in response to greater capacity requirements, and next month will upgrade its Budapest-Vienna-Paris route from an ATR72 to an A300.

However, Chaillé admitted there was little market visibility, making it hard to predict how the end of the year will turn out - traditionally a period of strong demand for FedEx.

"One would think that export traffic from Europe would benefit from the recent strengthening of the dollar [against the euro] and the reduction in oil prices, but only time will tell.

"Previous crises have illustrated that economies can bounce back quickly, and often express distribution is one the first sectors to feel it, " says Chaillé.

In a separate development, FedEx recently doubled sorting capacity at its facility at Milan's Malpensa airport, from 3,000 to 6,000 pieces an hour. It operates a twice-daily A300F service between Milan and Paris, as well as feeding cargo into the Italian gateway from centres such as Venice and Pisa using smaller aircraft.