Each week seven Qatar Airways passenger flights and six Boeing 777 freighters operate from Oslo to Doha.
95 per cent of all perishable seafood (PES) on board Qatar Airways flights out of Scandinavia, is salmon. But the bulk of the salmon business originates in Norway.
It exported 1.3 million tonnes of salmon in 2021, valued at $9.28bn, making it the world’s number one salmon exporter.
“Qatar Airways Cargo not only offers a global network of over 150 stations, we also reacted quickly to support Norwegian seafood exporters when the pandemic led to a dramatic decrease in available belly capacity. By introducing passenger freighters to the Norwegian seafood market, including Harstad-Narvik Airport in Evenes and Bodø Airport in Northern Norway, Qatar Airways Cargo significantly increased its capacity to the Norwegian market in 2021 when it was needed the most," says Rob Veltman Vice President Cargo Europe at Qatar Airways.
“Our operations team went above and beyond to meet the needs of our customers, resulting in a record breaking uplift of more than 68,944kg on a single lower deck 777 passenger flight. Qatar Airways Cargo transported more than 46,000 tonnes of Norwegian seafood in 2021, the highest result yet.”
Qatar Airways Cargo, together with its Norwegian GSA partner, ECS Group subsidiary, NordicGSA, were awarded DB Schenker’s prestigious Seafood Airline Award for three consecutive years: 2018, 2019, and 2020.