Emirates SkyCargo carried over 50,000 tons of flowers in 2018
Every year, millions of roses are gifted worldwide on Valentine’s Day resulting in a spike in demand for flowers in early February. To meet this requirement, major flower producing nations around the world including Kenya and Ecuador harvest and air-freight additional quantities of roses to important global centres of flower distribution such as the Aalsmeer market in the Netherlands and directly to customers around the world.
Emirates 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 for transporting flowers during this season, the freight division of Emirates will be operating a total of nine freighter flights dedicated for flowers over and above scheduled operations. With each Boeing 777 freighter aircraft being capable of transporting up to 100 tonnes of cargo, this translates into the carrier flying close to 900 tons of roses over and above the around 4,000 tons transported monthly.
The journey of flower exports begins on a farm where they are harvested by hand. The freshly harvested flowers are then sorted, arranged in bouquets and hand packed into boxes, which are then loaded on the aircraft. In order to ensure maximum freshness and shelf life, the flowers are maintained between 2 and 5 degrees centigrade.
Emirates SkyCargo 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.
Over 100,000 people in Ecuador and an estimated 500,000 people in Kenya depend on the floriculture industry for their income and livelihoods. By supporting exporters of flowers and other perishables reach customers in global markets, Emirates SkyCargo helps make an important economic contribution to the local economies.
In 2018, Emirates SkyCargo transported over 50,000 tons of flowers across the world. A majority of the flowers, over 27,000 tons, originated in Kenya. This is estimated to be around 15% of the overall flower exports from the nation. In January 2019, the carrier uplifted over 2,200 tons of flowers from Nairobi. During the same time, Emirates SkyCargo flew over 1,200 tons of flowers from Ecuador to Amsterdam.
Emirates SkyCargo also transports flowers in the belly hold of its passenger aircraft from other markets such as India, Thailand, Sri Lanka and Ethiopia.