Qatar Airways Cargo has flown 60 million roses out of Ecuador, Colombia and Kenya in the run-up to this year’s Valentine’s Day.
The carrier’s customers and cargo teams begin preparing for Valentine’s Day months in advance, with flower farms projecting more or less the tonnage required for the Valentine season, says Ian Morgan, Qatar Airways Cargo’s Vice President Cargo Americas. The forecasts determine whether extra flights are required to supplement the scheduled freighters during the peak flower transportation phase.
According to Morgan, this year the Ecuadorian market had to deal with 24% less capacity into Europe and around 16% less capacity into the US market. This led to three additional Quito-Miami flights and four extra flights from Quito to Europe and onward to Doha.
These flights complemented the five regular weekly freighters out of Quito.
“This is Qatar Airways Cargo’s second Valentine season out of Colombia and our sixth season out of Ecuador,” said Morgan.
The countries are the second and third largest flower exporters in the world after the Netherlands.
“Qatar Airways Cargo is always there to support the regular customers with extra capacity during the Valentine period,” says Nicolas Danton, Qatar Airways Cargo’s Regional Cargo Manager Africa.
The transportation period starts in the last week of January and goes on until around 9 February. Following handling, the flowers travel to Liège, Belgium, from where they are trucked to Amsterdam.
“A lot of coordination is required to arrange the charters with the authorities, and to handle the extra volumes and flights during that period,” explains Danton.
During the Valentine’s season, this results in additional 13 B77F charters alongside the usual scheduled freighter and passenger flights.
