Legal background is EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, i.e. to make the Baltic Sea Region an accessible and attractive place, and to improve internal and external transport links (p 49). Transport issues are especially important for BSR since the distances internally and to the rest of Europe are very long and the conditions for traffic are difficult. In the times of economic slowdown, the pace of change in the transport sector is increasing.

Project addresses to:

• Structural challenges: Regional airports act isolated without a clear picture of current situation on the international air cargo market and its future perspectives. In times, when regional industrial landscape is rapidly changing, conventional transport services are not able to fulfil new needs of logistics.
• ICT challenges: Absence of the common ICT infrastructure prevents growth of air cargo flights in the regional airports and causes a stagnant economic, airport and hinterland development.
• Political challenges: Air-cargo process' players act isolated. Each region (airport & hinterland) has its own strategies, recourses, infrastructure, state of knowledge, economic & boundary conditions.

Co-operation between regional authorities with airports lack behind possibilities. Project aims at enhancing operating environment in air cargo sector by:

1. Providing airport regions complex measures that accommodate the demand for air transport in an optimal way that attains more sustainable air cargo development, whilst maximizing economic benefits.
2. Increasing capacity of regional airports by improving usability, functionality and accessibility of the ICT network in the air-cargo sector.
3. Increasing interoperability of political and content transport related networks, through exploring and integrating of the air cargo issues in agenda of common transport strategy of the BSR; enhancing political collaboration among regional airports and airfreight players.

Project partnership developed following working plan to solve identified challenges:

• WP3 – will provide a complex analysis of the current situation on airfreight transport market in the BSR, associated infrastructural and operational needs of the regional airports, their prospects for future development and their possible role in the global network of air cargo supply chain.
• WP4 – will develop and implement innovative air cargo transport information system in / between the participating project regions (airport, hinterland).
• WP5 - will explore the air cargo market through pilot business actions with a focus on regional development.

Air cargo issues had been neither properly investigated already in finished projects nor have been included in the running logistic projects. Therefore, Baltic.Aircargo.Net will secure relevance of the project activities with transport development strategies through cooperation with transport related initiatives on regional, Pan-Baltic and European level.