The international freight forwarder a. hartrodt, headquartered in Hamburg, is expanding its European network with its own company in Austria. Since the beginning of April 2023, Christine Mair has headed a. hartrodt Austria GmbH as Country Manager directly at Vienna International Airport. The 40-year-old has been working at the airport in Vienna for two decades, where she “learned the air freight business from the bottom up” with both General Sales Agents  and freight forwarders holding management positions. In setting up a. hartrodt Austria, she is initially concentrating on air freight, with all freight forwarding divisions to be “successively added” later.

Within the first year, Mair wants to build up a team of five. The plan is to hire a sales expert and two to three people for operations. In the medium term, Mair aims to offer customers “competitive solutions” for air and sea freight, land transport, project and warehouse logistics. She will get support from the international network of a. hartrodt.

Born in the province of Salzburg (Austria), she will primarily develop the Austrian export business for the family-owned company. “Negotiations are easier with our own local office,” she emphasizes. According to her, the location in the immediate vicinity of airlines, GSAs and customs is an advantage. So far, a. hartrodt has served existing Austrian customers from Germany, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. “In the past, the business was routed through our overseas offices,” says Sebastian Endt, Regional Director Central and Eastern Europe, to whom Mair reports. In the future, Endt is aiming for “50 percent of own export business” in Austria, including new customers.

For a. hartrodt’s expansion strategy in Central/Eastern Europe, Austria is of great importance due to its central location and medium-sized industry. “Machinery, plants or chemical products are sold to China, among others,” says Endt. In this context, Vienna Airport “with its excellent infrastructure” plays a central role, also for neighboring countries. From the Czech Republic or Slovakia, for example, road feeder services bring shipments for the automotive industry to Vienna International Airport. In the region, a. hartrodt has further branches in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary and Romania with a total of 140 employees.

“Taking regional market conditions into account means first and foremost being close to the people, speaking their language and understanding their requirements,” says Jan Buelck, Head of Sales Europe at a. hartrodt’s management holding company. “For this reason, we are continuously driving forward the global regionalization of our group and investing in our own locations, expanding our logistics capacities and reinforcing ourselves with specialists who are at home in the respective region,” he explains the European sales strategy.