‘Play me Hearts
and Flowers,’ as the saying goes but no doubt less than a week
from now 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 at the end
of this week, 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 good growth.
So much so that we have ended up operating extra charters during this
period,” 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.
“Large amounts of traffic
tend to move to the auction markets in Amsterdam and then on to the 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 have invested quite heavily
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 custody.
“We have storage (cool cells)
for our ULDs in our PCHS (pallets and container handling system) in addition
to huge dedicated floor space for cool/cold storage facility inside our
cargo mega terminal.
“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.
“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 size and technologies to 27 percent of SkyCargo business,”
said Nabil Sultan.
Sounds fresh to us.
Geoffrey/Flossie |
