To accommodate the particularly high import demand around Valentine’s Day, Lufthansa Cargo is transporting 900 tonnes of the roses on the Quito – Frankfurt, Bogotá – Frankfurt and Nairobi – Frankfurt routes this year, equivalent to some 10m individual roses. The roses are being imported over roughly a three-week period. The flowers only remain in Frankfurt for a few hours after landing before being transported onwards to all of Europe – primarily to other German cities, but also to neighboring countries, including Austria and Switzerland.
Emirates SkyCargo, meanwhile, has operated nine extra Boeing 777 freighter 'flower charters', spanning five continents, to meet additional demand ahead of Valentine’s Day. Just as reported by Lufthansa, this translates into the carrier flying close to 900 tonnes of roses over the 4,000 tonnes transported monthly. The rest of the year, the carrier operates daily scheduled freighter flights to Nairobi and four weekly freighters to Quito to uplift flowers that are flown to destinations across its network.
UPS is gearing up its global logistics of network to deliver an estimated 89m flowers in time for February 14 – an increase of 1m from the number of flowers delivered last year. UPS has added 50 extra flights during this period to handle what is expected to be in excess of 517,000 boxes of flowers. The integrator sources its flowers from Ecuador and Colombia and channels them to the US through Miami International airport, a process that the integrator says takes less than two days
Most of the roses begin their journey in Bolivia, Ecuador or Kenya, where the growing conditions are optimal. The roses are harvested several times a day at the flower farms in Africa and South America and then immediately placed in water and cooled, before being taken directly to the airport and loaded onto the freighters. To ensure the flowers remain fresh, a temperature-controlled environment of 2-4˚C is maintained throughout the journey.
