Emirates expects balanced loads on Durban route

With its airline now operating daily flights between Durban and Dubai, Emirates SkyCargo is “optimistic” about cargo possibilities on this service, its third destination in SA and 17th in Africa, according to Johannesburg-based cargo manager Kum Naicker. Well before the airline started Durban flights, he told FTW, the Emirates head office had closely studied the market this supplied, and recognised its potential. In a communication to FTW, Peter Sedgley, senior vice-president of cargo commercial operations, said Emirates was ideally placed to provide the port city of Durban with swift, reliable connections to its trading partners around the world. And the core cargo business is there, according to Emirates’ research. “There is a variety of commodities moving out of Durban,” said Sedgley, “car parts, pay channel decoders, electronic parking meters, aluminium, electronics, tools, perishables such as pineapples, and textiles. “These are bound for markets as far afield as Europe, the Middle East, the US and Australia.” Agents on the spot in KwaZulu Natal are “enthusiastic”, SkyCargo’s Durban cargo manager, Nathan Padayachy, told FTW. Flying an Airbus A330 on the route, with loading capacity for about 12 tons of cargo a flight depending on passenger load, the carrier is offering the market about 84-tons of cargo space a week in both directions. “The main traffic on the flights to date has been inbound,” Padayachy said, “but we are getting positive cargo enquiries daily, expect to increase outgoing volumes, and aim for a good balance between import and export traffic over time.” The airline is also presently busy assessing the products and potential at the new King Shaka International Airport being constructed at La Mercy north of Durban and due to open in May next year. “But it’ll be a couple of months yet before we can say anything definite about this,” Padayachy added.