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   Vol. 14  No. 13
Tuesday February 10, 2015

SkyCargo Stems For Valentines

SkyCargo Stems From Valentine's

     ‘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 Emirates SVP 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

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