Emirates SkyCargo operated nine additional freighter flights for flowers to meet the additional demand for transporting flowers during the Valentine’s Day.
The freight division of Emirates has transported close to 900 tonnes of roses over and above the around 4000 tonnes transported monthly.
Every year, millions of roses are gifted worldwide on Valentine’s Day resulting in a spike in demand for flowers in early February, says a media release.
To meet the requirement, major flower producing nations, including Kenya and Ecuador, harvest and export additional quantities of roses.
They export the flowers to important global centres of flower distribution such as the Aalsmeer market in the Netherlands and directly to customers around the world.
The SkyCargo operates daily scheduled freighter flights to Nairobi and four weekly freighters to Quito around the year to uplift flowers that are then flown to destinations across its network.
However, in order to meet the additional demand, it operated the additional nine freighter flights this year. It has also notched a number of historic firsts this year, said the release.
The air cargo carrier operated its first direct freighter flight carrying flowers from Nairobi directly to Sydney and from Quito directly to Los Angeles.
This is in keeping with the trend where flower farms supply directly to end customers in global markets in addition to supplying to the flower auction houses.
The carrier has designed a specialised three-tiered portfolio of solutions—Emirates Fresh, Emirates Fresh Active and Emirates Fresh Breathe—for air-freighting different kinds of perishable cargo including food items and flowers.
Emirates Fresh Breathe provides ventilated cool chain solutions for fresh cut flowers. . In order to ensure maximum freshness and shelf life, the flowers are maintained between 2 and 5 degrees centigrade.
The SkyCargo also transports flowers in the belly hold of its passenger aircraft from other markets such as India, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.
Emirates SkyCargo’s fleet of Boeing 777 and Boeing 747 aircraft offer a cargo capacity of over 100 tonnes per flight. In 2018, the air cargo carrier moved close to 2.6 million tonnes of cargo.
