Emirates airlifted 46,000 tonnes of flowers across the world in 2019 with over 24,000 tonnes, originating from Kenya, the company has revealed.
A further 2,000 tonnes were transported in January this year with the company insisting that Kenya remains an important freighter station for Emirates SkyCargo.
According to Emirates Cargo Manager East Africa, Saeed Abdalla roses and carnations are the most hauled products from East Africa.
“We met our seasonal Valentine’s Day flowers demand with our freighter service between Kenya and the Netherlands as well as the Middle East. This year, we deployed two additional freighter services to meet the demand for transport of flowers,” said Mr. Saeed.
“As an airline, we have invested heavily on in our fleet and infrastructure to deliver fresh flowers to customers across different markets,” he added
Every day, Emirates SkyCargo transports fresh flowers across its global network of over 155 destinations on board dedicated freighters as well as in the belly hold of passenger aircraft.
In addition, Emirates SkyCargo has designed a specialised three-tiered portfolio of solutions – Emirates Fresh, Emirates Fresh Active and Emirates Fresh Breathe – for airfreighting different kinds of perishable cargo including food items and flowers. In particular, Emirates Fresh Breathe provides ventilated cool chain solutions for fresh cut flowers.
“Since we launched Emirates Fresh in 2017, we have transported around 400,000 tonnes of perishables annually. We believe that the export of perishables helps local economies. As a result, we have been able to stimulate global business partnerships and trade by opening new markets for Kenyan exporters through our flight connections across six continents through Dubai,” said Mr. Abdulla.
Emirates SkyCargo operates Boeing 777 freighters that can carry up to 100 tonnes of cargo allowing uplift of a large volume of cargo.
The airline continually offers cargo capacity through its Boeing 777-300ER passenger aircraft that can take up to 23 tonnes of cargo on a full passenger flight. Last year, the air cargo carrier moved closed to 2.6 million tonnes of cargo.
In 2020, Emirates SkyCargo is geared up to facilitate global trade and cargo movement through a combination of innovative product development and investment in ‘fit for purpose’ infrastructure. With Expo 2020 Dubai set to kick off in October 2020, Emirates is working with its partners to provide specialised airfreight services manage the upsurge in movement of goods to and from Dubai.
That’s a lot of flowers! Awesome.