Romantic Russians Boost AirBridgeCargo’s Flower Volumes

Romantic Russians have provided a business boost for AirBridgeCargo Airlines (ABC), the country’s largest cargo carrier, with a big rise in flower imports ahead of St. Valentine’s Day.

In the lead up to February 14th, ABC transported 1,400 tons of flowers from Amsterdam to Moscow, an 18% increase over the same period in 2013.

Denis Ilin, Executive President of AirBridgeCargo, said: “The demand for flowers in Russia is buoyant. The market is worth over US$1 billion a year and over 75% of flowers are imported, with Amsterdam being sort of pooling point for flowers coming from different parts of the world. That makes our scheduled B747 freighter services linking Amsterdam and Russian largest cities the first choice for flower importers that need a fast and reliable delivery service to ensure the freshness of their products.”

ABC is the largest importer of flowers to Russia. The carrier transports some 16 000 tonnes of cut flowers per year. The vast majority of cargo traffic goes to the Russian Far East: Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Krasnojarsk, and Khabarovsk.

March will see another peak in flower traffic for ABC related to another holiday — International Women’s Day.

AirBridgeCargo Airlines currently operates 8 weekly flights from Amsterdam to Moscow (SVO), 2 flights to Novosibirsk (OVB), 2 weekly flights to Yekaterinburg (SVX), 1 weekly flight to Khabarovsk (KHA), and 1 weekly flight to Krasnoyarsk (KJA).