Brussels cargo community turns 10 with 170 members and 800,000 tonnes

Brussels Airport moved nearly 800,000 tonnes of cargo last year, and the association that claims credit for coordinating that community, Air Cargo Belgium (ACB), now counts more than 170 members across handlers, airlines, forwarders and truckers. The non-profit umbrella group marks its tenth anniversary this year.

ACB was founded to pull the air logistics supply chain at Brussels Airport (BRU) into a single forum. A decade on, ACB and the airport operator describe the result as an ecosystem they call unique in the world. That claim is theirs, not an auditor's. What is verifiable is the project record.

Chairman Geert Aerts framed the value in structural terms. "This community approach ensures that the role cargo activities play in the Belgian economy, as well as the position of each individual company within the community, are strengthened," he said.

What has the community actually delivered?

Director Freek de Witte was more concrete about method than outcome. "We make progress by doing things together, not just by having a vision and making statements," he said. "We bring all the airlines together, all the forwarders together, all the handlers, all the truckers together, and they discuss problems."

He pointed to one named project as evidence. "The fact that we keep achieving these projects, like digital dream lane based on the cloud, is the real game changer," de Witte said. Note what he did not offer: throughput targets, cost savings or adoption rates for that platform.

The association lists four flagship achievements:

• Animal Care & Inspection Center (ACIC): Brussels Airport funded specialised infrastructure so live animals can be received, cared for and inspected in one place, replacing fragmented handler-level arrangements.
• COVID-19 vaccine operations: the world's first flight carrying COVID-19 vaccines departed Brussels, and over three billion vaccine doses moved through the airport during the pandemic, leveraging existing pharma-handling expertise and the collaboration platform.
• Digital Green Lane in Brucloud: an online booking system for truck drivers that ACB says reduces wait times and streamlines landside logistics, paired with change management and training.
• Precision Therapy Logistics Gateway: a project targeting the supply chain for personalised medicine, an emerging high-value cargo segment.

The vaccine figure is the strongest number in the anniversary account. It also reflects a position built on pharma handling that predates the pandemic, not a new capability created by it.

How close is the regulator relationship?

ACB's work with Belgian Customs has hardened into a formal role. The association now serves as the primary point of contact for communication, software testing and other customs-related initiatives concerning air freight handling at Brussels Airport. That designation gives ACB a gatekeeping function most airport cargo associations do not hold.

The group also maintains working relationships with the Belgian Civil Aviation Authority (BCAA) and the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FAVV), covering the regulatory span from aviation oversight to perishables and animal-transport compliance.

Where does the network go next?

BRU and ACB are not limiting themselves to domestic coordination. They have signed collaboration agreements with Changi, Washington, Hyderabad and Shanghai, and are now working to align processes into what they call high-quality, controlled trade lanes between Brussels and those hubs.

One agreement is more specific than the rest. A pharmaceutical memorandum of understanding with Hyderabad acknowledges India's position as a key supplier of pharma products, aligning the lane with where the cargo actually originates. The other agreements remain statements of intent until operational alignment produces measurable results.

What does this change for shippers and forwarders at BRU? For now, a single customs interlocutor, centralised animal handling and a digitised trucking interface — practical gains, none of them yet quantified by ACB in public.

The association's own framing rests on pragmatism over vision statements, in de Witte's words. The next decade's test is whether the controlled trade lanes and the precision-therapy gateway convert from announced projects into measured throughput.