The Paris-based general sales agent has secured a major contract with Saudia Cargo. According to exclusive information obtained by CargoForwarder Global on the sideline of the recently-held World Cargo Symposium in Los Angeles, the deal, slated to commence immediately, encompasses Saudia’s entire sales biz in the U.S. and Canada.
The Arabian cargo carrier offers a weekly capacity of nearly 400 tons in the lower decks of its passenger aircraft on current routes to and from the States and Canada. These encompass services to New York (JFK), Washington DC, and – since 1 April – as third destination Los Angeles. All flights are operated with Boeing 777-300ER passenger jets, which are able to accommodate, although depending on the number of travelers and their luggage, more than 20 tons of air freight each departure. While JFK and Dulles International are served daily, Toronto and Los Angeles are operated three times weekly for the time being.
In addition to the above listed online stations there are a variety of offline airports that are integrated in Saudia Cargo’s network through road feeder services. These include basically all
major cities in North America, particularly Houston, Chicago and Montreal.
Gaining Saudia Cargo as client is a remarkable first success for newly appointed Sales Director for the U.S., Shaun Hawkett. Based in New York his main mission is to push ECS’s regional sales
further forward and acquire additional customers.
So far, the GSA is representing Brussels Airlines Cargo and All Nippon Airways Cargo in North America, complemented by an array of offline carriers such as Air Baltic or Ukraine
International.
ECS’s German subsidiary Globe Air Cargo also announced that their customer Mongolian Airlines (MIAT) will commence serving Frankfurt this summer, deploying a pax Boeing 767 on flights between
Mongolia’s capital Ulan Bator and Rhine-Main. The sector is complementing the Berlin flights which were operated by 737s during the last winter schedule but will also be operated with 767
equipment beginning at the end of this month.
“Through this upcoming doubling of flights and the leap in lower deck capacity we can market roughly 150 tons per month,” states Mark Grinsted, Commercial Director at Globe. He adds that
shipments are collected from all over Europe since there are hardly any mass transports of air freight to Mongolia. “We even had consignments coming as far as from Ireland that we first trucked
to Berlin. From there the goods were flown in the holds of a MIAT aircraft to Ulan Bator.” Hence, Globe’s sales initiatives for filling the lower decks of the Mongolian airline cover just about
every corner of Europe.
Heiner Siegmund