From cold-chain expertise to inbound cargo growth, Avinor is using air cargo as a strategic lever for Norway’s economy.

The company’s director of cargo, Eva Beate Lande, shares insights on these and the vision behind Cargo West, Oslo airport’s promising new cargo village.

How are global economic conditions affecting the air cargo industry in general, and what implications does this have for Norway’s airports?

Global uncertainty is actually strengthening the case for air cargo. When supply chains are disrupted and predictability matters, speed wins.

For Norway, the implications are significant. We are a long, export-oriented country where seafood, oil and gas, and maritime industries depend on fast, reliable international connections.

Seafood alone represents more than 60% of cargo weight through Oslo Airport. That makes cargo far more than a logistics question for us, it is infrastructure for national export competitiveness.

Strong cargo flows strengthen the business case for intercontinental routes, and stronger routes make Oslo a more compelling hub. The logic reinforces itself, and we intend to build on it deliberately.

What do you see as the biggest challenges facing air cargo airports and hubs in the next 5–10 years, and how is Avinor preparing?

The core challenge is capacity – not demand. The major European hubs are increasingly constrained, and for airports like Oslo that have land, operational reliability and a strong export base, that is not just a problem to manage. It is a market share opportunity to seize.

That opportunity is what Cargo West (new cargo village at Oslo airport) is built around, a purpose-built cargo area at Oslo Airport, designed for efficiency, flexibility and year-round operability under Nordic conditions.

We are currently deep in concept and engineering work: mapping goods flows, modelling internal transport, stress-testing the design against peak demand and security requirements.

We have not yet made a financial investment decision, that is planned for Q4, but the work underway is precisely what will make that decision possible. The choices we make in this phase will shape how Oslo handles cargo for the next thirty years.

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What trends are you seeing in e-commerce, and how are Avinor’s airports adapting?

E-commerce matters, but I want to be clear: it is not a goal in itself for us.

Our deeper ambition is to make Oslo Airport the natural first point of entry for goods coming into Norway and the Nordic region, across all cargo categories; pharmaceuticals, industrial components, fresh produce, consumer goods, e-commerce parcels.

The real question is how we make it more compelling for airlines, forwarders and shippers to route inbound cargo directly through Oslo, rather than via Amsterdam or Frankfurt.

Every tonne that transits a continental hub before reaching Norway is a journey that could be shorter, cheaper and lower-carbon if it came direct. Cargo West is being designed with exactly that ambition, flexible enough to serve the full spectrum of operators and cargo types, so Oslo becomes the default inbound choice, not an afterthought.

Can you discuss the growing importance of pharma and perishables in air cargo? How are Norway’s airports equipping themselves to handle these specialised shipments?

Cold-chain capability is not something we are building, it is something we already have, at scale.

Approximately 650 tonnes of Norwegian seafood fly to Asia and North America every day, and seafood represented 55% of cargo weight across the Avinor group in 2024. We are a cold-chain airport system in a way most of our competitors are not.

The ambition now is to extend that advantage into pharma and other temperature-sensitive categories. The operational discipline we have developed through seafood, temperature control, documentation precision, transit reliability, transfers directly.

Cargo West takes this further, with cargo quality, year-round operability and weather protection built in as core design requirements, not afterthoughts.

We are designing for Norwegian winters, which means designing for resilience that softer-climate competitors simply cannot match.

With the rise of automation and emerging technologies in cargo handling, what impact do you see this having on the facilities and activities of Avinor’s airports?

The gap between airports that embrace technology and those that do not is widening fast. But there is a crucial distinction between infrastructure that is technology-compatible, where systems get bolted on after the fact, and infrastructure that is genuinely technology-ready, where physical layout, workflows and data architecture are designed together from the start.

Cargo West is our opportunity to build the latter. Because we are still in the concept phase, no legacy decisions constrain us. We are evaluating how to handle internal transport of unit load devices (ULDs) and pallets across a 4.9km distance, how to interface between cargo types, and how to build a facility that evolves as technology evolves.

The airports that will win the next decade of cargo growth are investing now in infrastructure that will not need to be rebuilt when the next wave of automation arrives. That is what we are building.

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How are Avinor’s airports addressing sustainability concerns in cargo operations? What green initiatives are being implemented?

The most underappreciated sustainability lever in cargo is directional balance. When an aircraft flies from Oslo to Shanghai full of salmon and comes back half-empty, that is a significant loss, financially and environmentally.

Strengthening inbound cargo flows is not just a commercial priority; it is a carbon efficiency priority.

More cargo in both directions means better aircraft utilisation and a lower emissions footprint per ton moved.

Cargo West is being evaluated against sustainability criteria throughout the design process, energy use, operational efficiency, footprint implications.

We want a facility that is environmentally considered from the ground up, not retrofitted. And more broadly, our development philosophy at Oslo Airport is to get more from existing infrastructure before expanding – optimising the two-runway system and reducing operational inefficiency across the board.

How are Avinor’s airports balancing the need for increased security measures with the demand for faster, more efficient cargo processing?

Security and efficiency are not in tension if you design them together. The friction at most airports comes from security being layered onto processes that were never built around it.

The solution is to make security intrinsic to the flow from the start, and that is precisely what Cargo West gives us the chance to do.

This is a real differentiator. Most European cargo infrastructure was built in a different era, with security requirements added over time. When you build from scratch, you can design a facility where compliant, efficient handling are the same thing, not competing priorities. A shipper will notice that difference in transit time, predictability and cost.

Cargo West should set the benchmark for what a secure, modern cargo facility looks like in the 2030s, and that becomes part of Oslo’s competitive proposition in a way older infrastructure simply cannot replicate.

As director of cargo at Avinor, what are your key priorities and goals for the next year?

The overriding goal is to make Oslo a world-class cargo hub and use cargo as a strategic lever for Norway’s global connectivity.

Cargo West dominates my near-term focus. Completing the concept work, building a rigorous decision basis for the financial investment decision planned for Q4, and keeping design ambition high, those are non-negotiables.

I want Cargo West to be the facility we need in 2035, not just a fix for today’s constraints.

Alongside that, market development is critical. We need deeper relationships across the ecosystem, airlines, forwarders, exporters, integrators and Oslo’s story needs to be compelling in the right boardrooms globally.

And the third priority is inbound flows: closing the directional gap so that the aircraft arriving into Oslo are as productive as the ones leaving. That is the flywheel that makes everything else stronger.

For Avinor, air cargo is about far more than moving goods. It is about enabling Norway’s place in the global economy – and Cargo West is how we build the infrastructure to match that ambition.

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