March 17- Emirates SkyCargo, Dubai’s national airline’s freight division, ships around 1,000 tons of flowers to Amsterdam every month. This is expected to increase by over 400 tons when Emirates launches its daily passenger service to Amsterdam from May 1. Currently, these flowers are shipped to Amsterdam via the SkyCargo freighters once a week. The freighters leave from Dubai, stop in Africa to ‘pick’ up the flowers and then head to Amsterdam. There the consignments are offloaded and taken to the nearby town of Aalsmeer, the largest flower auction in the world.
“This is a delicate commodity to work with and we have special temperature-controlled facilities to make sure the flowers remain at a constant cool temperature both in the air and on the ground. Our intricate process boosts the life of perishable commodities by ‘preserving the cool chain’ throughout the journey,” Ram Menen, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice-president, Cargo, explained. “As well as bringing shipments of flowers into Amsterdam, our freighters help export the flowers, via our international hub in Dubai. Figures show that exports from the Netherlands cover more than 60 per cent of the world’s fresh-cut plants, flowers and bulbs. It’s big business,” he added.
Amsterdam will be Emirates second new route this year after Tokyo, which will start on March 28. Other routes include Prague (July 1), Madrid (August 1) and Dakar in September. Meanwhile, the 777-200LR and 777-300ER aircrafts will be used for the Dubai-Amsterdam route. From May 1, EK flight 145 will leave Dubai daily at 0825hrs and arrive in Amsterdam at 1330hrs. From Amsterdam, EK 146 departs at 1530hrs, arriving in Dubai at 2359hrs.
