General sales agents Express Air Services (EAS) have just been appointed general sales and service (GSSA) and cargo handling agent for Kenyan-based Astral Aviation in SA, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Looking at his mental map of the EAS aviation network in southern Africa, MD Garry Marshall described the link-up as “providing an important East African dot in our ‘join-up-the dots’ cartographic coverage of the continent”. Astral is a major player in aviation in East Africa, he told FTW, operating a code-share agreement with Lufthansa Cargo and sharing its twice-weekly flights of an MD11 freighter between Johannesburg and Nairobi. “Astral also operates a lot of freighter flights out of Nairobi to various destinations, including an East-West Africa connection which is a bonus for us.” Other dots on the EAS map of sub- Saharan Africa are filled in by other client airlines. “We cater for Air Uganda,” said Marshall, “selling its cargo space and handling its cargo for flights to Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa and Juba – all places where EAS has a cargo operation. We also outsource the cargo operation for the new carrier, Zambezi Airlines, which has started operating out of Lusaka in Zambia to a variety of destinations.” Added to that is the regional muscle of the SA-based airline, Comair. “All this makes us a pretty strong force in southern Africa,” said Marshall, “allowing us to tranship between our airline clients and really join up the dots around the subcontinent.”
