‘Play
me Hearts and Flowers,’ as the saying goes but
no doubt in about a little over two weeks, the order
of the day will be romance as an early indicator (along
with pitchers and catchers showing up for Spring Training
in Baseball) that a new season of romance and hope is
tipping off.
But we wonder what the
season of love means to air cargo?
Nabil Sultan at Emirates
SkyCargo loves everything air cargo, including thinking
about it and sharing his thoughts as well.
Witness the SkyCargo Divisional
Senior Vice President as a guiding force, ramping up
capabilities and sales for all manner of perishables
that now account for an exponentially growing amount
of business at the Dubai logistics powerhouse. With
that most romantic of holidays wavering like a bright,
red beacon, the impact of Valentine’s Day on air
cargo should never be underestimated.
“Valentine’s
Day, for all cargo operators, is very important.
“For Emirates SkyCargo,
volumes of flowers, especially the roses we ship everywhere,
have shown exponential growth. In fact, we have had
to operate extra charters just to cater to our customers’
needs,” said Nabil Sultan.
With several interconnected
markets involved, Valentine's Day becomes a hugely coordinated
effort for air cargo, with “Kenya and other flower
producing areas” shaking out as the largest, most
involved markets in the mix.
“From these locations,
we transport the flowers to the auction markets in Amsterdam,
and then on to all over the world.
“We do also tend
of get a fair amount of direct to market flowers, too.”
The movement of perishables
is never a simple business, but Emirates SkyCargo has
been handling delicate, time-sensitive materials from
the very beginning.
“Perishables and
cargo requiring temperature control have all been a
big part of our business right from the start of the
airline.
“We are committed
in this area to ensure that we provide our customers
with the best in the industry. For example, at our dedicated
freighter cargo facility, Emirates SkyCentral in Maktoum
International Airport, we have invested heavily in state-of-the-art
equipment and technology in technology, ranging from
ULDs, cool dollies, and special covers to cool/cold
storage facilities to ensure the integrity of cool chain
throughout the time that the cargo is in our custody.
“We have storage
(cool cells) for our ULDs in our PCHS (pallets and container
handling system). All these are housed in a large dedicated
cool/cold storage facility that can accommodate high
volumes of cargo.
“We work with the
customer to better understand the requirement for specific
commodity and tailor a solution for the same.
“About 13 percent
of our business cargo falls into the temperature sensitive
category.
“At Emirates SkyCargo
we have empowered an entire dedicated section that is
involved in research and development, working with various
experts/equipment manufacturers etc., to help create
equipment/processes which will cater to our current
and future requirements to support this type of traffic.”
But with time- and temperature-sensitive
cargo, a ‘one size fits all’ model doesn’t
apply.
“Emirates has different
solutions for different temperature ranges.
“We encourage/facilitate
the Active Containers like Envirotainer for commodities
requiring transportation between 2-8 C, and white covers
for 15-25 C range.
“Cool Dollies on
the ground are utilized for highly perishable commodities.
“Environmental responsibility
is a core value of the Emirates Group,” said
Emirates Group in a just released report highlighting
fleet renewal.
“In 2014-15
(April 2014 through March 2015) Emirates added 24
aircraft including our 50th A380 aircraft and 100th
B777-300ER,” the carrier said.
“We
also retired 10 older aircraft maintaining the average
age of our fleet at 75 months—about half the
industry average of 140 months,” the report
continues.
Emirates Group
said that it employed 84 thousand people serving
144 destinations with 232 aircraft and carried 49.3
million passengers.
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“The Emirates freighter
fleet has four different zones which can be individually
set for maintaining different temperatures… and
many other initiatives are deployed for customizing
the tailored processes.”
There are several markets
around the world with an interest in transporting sensitive
cargo—pharma for India comes to mind as the most
prevalent currently, but Emirates has a keen eye focused
on all avenues opened by perishables.
“India is obviously
a large market leading the world market with its pharma
industry. India is also a key player in production/export
of fruits and vegetables.
“Africa/Far East/Australia,
Latin America all are growing markets for our advanced
temperature controlled transportation services.
“In fact, this is
true for every market, including right here in the Gulf
and Middle-Eastern region.
“I expect perishables
growth to continue; in time it will account for about
30% percent of SkyCargo’s business,” said
Nabil Sultan.
Sounds fresh to us.
Geoffrey/Flossie
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