Company History

Unitpool was originally created in 2001 under the working name GlobePool within the management team of Swissair Cargo, where the concept of ULD Pooling for the Qualiflyer Alliance was developed.  Despite the grounding of Swissair and subsequent collapse of the Qualiflyer Alliance the founder management team launched the company, under the new name of Unitpool.  At the end of 2003, Swissport acquired a majority stake in the company adding ULD management to their growing portfolio of airline related services.

When Swissport was acquired by the Spanish conglomerate, Ferrovial, in 2005, a strategic decision to move away from asset ownership forced Swissport to divest its majority in Unitpool, and in October 2007, after being part of the Swissport group of companies for almost four years, Unitpool was acquired by Aviation Services Holdings (ASH), a company owned by private investors represented by Afinum (www.afinum.de) and a group of influential aviation investors.

Since the end of 2003 Unitpool has grown and matured considerably, not only proving the concept but reaching the critical mass to generate and share the economies of scale required for the true synergy potential from pooling.

Track Record

Unitpool is rightly proud of its track record.  Swiss International Airlines is the only pooling customer to have left Unitpool.  After its acquisition by Lufthansa, the Swiss carrier left to join sister company Jettainer, also owned by Lufthansa.  This departure also coincided with the timing of Ferrovial’s decision to divest Swissport’s majority in Unitpool, but despite these hurdles, the company continued to move forward. 

Following the change of ownership, several key customers extended their contracts, most notably Etihad Airways, Air Bridge Cargo and Brussels Airlines.  In addition, various important new contracts were signed.  One is with the world’s largest integrated travel groups, TUI Travel, who’ve committed their growing portfolio of airlines for a minimum of four years, as well as the highly ambitious Air Asia X, which extended its contract for five years at the end of 2009, are the latest passenger airliness to join the pool.  Freighter operators Arrow Cargo (a Miami-based carrier) and Russian airline Polet also joined Unitpool in 2009.  Finally, in January 2010 after a year long preparation period, Europe's leading cargo airline, Cargolux, transferred its ULD supply and managment to Unitpool.

Milestones

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