Leisure Goes for Strike

It must be kind of a feeling of coming home for Ronnie Robbins. This because the manager who formerly worked for Leisure as regional chief for Florida and the neighboring U.S. states before quitting and joining the Strike Group, will now lead Strike Aviation’s Miami team. Their job is promoting, expanding, and further boosting Leisure Cargo’s business particularly in the perishables field. “We are happy to closely cooperate with Ronnie and his colleagues who are acknowledged market experts. I am sure we can benefit from their experience and quality of service,” enthuses Wolfram Simon, CEO of forwarding agent Zeitfracht, the parent company of Leisure Cargo.

Main transit hub for perishables
Following a tender, Leisure Cargo picked Strike as future local partner because the Florida-based GSA “has outlined and identified considerable growth potential to drive our business further forward,” emphasizes Managing Director Thilo Schaefer of Leisure Cargo. It’s particularly the large product range of fruits and vegetables causing his covetousness. They are flown in from different Latin American regions to MIA or arrive there by truck if harvested in Florida or one of the nearby states.

The signing of the Leisure-Strike agreement last week had been preceded by an intensive testing phase starting last November and stretching into April in which the U.S. GSA has tabled “excellent results based on their strong Latin American network, supporting our mandate airlines’ flights through Miami,” states Zeitfracht chief Simon.
Florida is a stronghold for Leisure Cargo. This because the perishables business is constantly growing with Miami being the key transit hub for this sensitive and demanding product family with most of the goods ending up in supermarkets somewhere in the U.S. or Canada, while a large portion is flown across the North Atlantic to European consumers as well.

Access to ample lower-deck capacity
That’s where the duo Strike/Leisure comes into play: “Thanks to a number of mandate airlines whose cargo business we entirely  manage, we have direct access to the lower deck compartments of aircraft operated to and from Florida by holiday flyers Condor, Thomas Cook UK and Thomson/TUI,” states Herr Schaefer. 
The pact with Strike was preceded by Leisure Cargo’s decision to divide the U.S. market in two parts with Strike becoming responsible for cargo sales on behalf of Leisure in the southeastern U.S. states, while New York-based Airline Network Services (ANS) remain responsible for running Leisure’s business in all other U.S. states. “Fact is that getting the Strike Group on board is not a decision against our partner ANS that’s doing a fantastic job day after day but the markets both companies cover and Strike’s exceptional role in perishables has prompted the decision now taken by us,” explains Mr Schaefer.

From DUS to FRA
Two weeks ago, Leisure Cargo moved its HQ from Dusseldorf Airport to Frankfurt’s CargoCity South where the GSA took over the office formerly rented by Emirates SkyCargo. Originally established as subsidiary of Air Berlin, Leisure Cargo was taken over (100 percent) last November by Berlin-based Zeitfracht Luftfahrt Holding GmbH after the insolvency of their parent company in October, 2017. Currently, the GSA manages a worldwide network of 15 airlines, cooperates with 200 interline partners and offers forwarders and shippers access to over 300 destinations.

Heiner Siegmund