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Swissport awarded "load control" business for all continental flights of Swiss International Air Lines

Swissport has been awarded a 5-year contract to perform load control services for all continental flights of Swiss International Air Lines. Swissport’s “Centralized Load Control” unit (CLC) will provide SWISS with some 21,000 load-sheets yearly across 47 airports.

Following a rigorous selection process with the participation of CLC providers from around the world, Swissport was awarded an expanded contract with a five-year term until the end of 2024 and has already started to will provide load control services for all continental Swiss International Air Lines (SWISS) flights. The yearly service volume is expected to increase from 12,000 load-sheets today to some 21,000 in future. Swissport has been providing SWISS with load control services for a limited number of European destinations since 2013.

"We are delighted that a renowned airline such as SWISS entrusts us to carry out load control for their entire continental operations," says Luzius Wirth, Executive Vice President Europe, Middle East & Africa." Thanks to the recent opening of our second CLC center in Nairobi and our growing team of highly qualified specialists, working from Zurich, Casablanca and Nairobi, we have excellent prospects for a further expansion of these services.”

In total, Swissport will provide SWISS with load control services at 47 airports. The airline’s hub operation in Zurich, Switzerland, as well as all of SWISS’ flights departing from Geneva, Switzerland, will be serviced by more than one hundred Swissport specialists based in Zurich. In addition, the company currently employs roughly three dozen load control specialists at two dedicated CLC offices in Casablanca, Morocco, and in Nairobi, Kenya.

Load control specialists create so-called load sheets for every flight. These load sheets are based on complex calculations, considering weight, weather conditions, runway specifications and aircraft performance, among other aspects. They provide instructions for the loading of a flight’s cargo and the seating of its passengers. The correct weight distribution is to ensure that the pilots can maintain a correct pitch (angle) of the aircraft for a safe and fuel-efficient flight. It is the responsibility of certified load control officers to ensure that all the cargo pallets or containers are positioned at the correct place and passengers distributed in an optimal way. 


In 2018, Swissport International AG provided best-in-class airport ground services for some 282 million airline passengers and handled roughly 4.8 million tons of air freight in 115 cargo warehouses worldwide. Several of its warehouses have been certified for pharmaceutical logistics by IATA’s CEIV. The world's leader in airport ground services and air cargo handling, with 66,000 employees, achieved consolidated operating revenue of 2.99 billion euros in 2018. At the end of June 2019, Swissport was active at 310 airports in 49 countries on six continents.