SAS Cargo buys capacity to China from Emirates Sky Cargo

As of October 31st a Boeing 747-400F freighter will operate SAS Cargo's two weekly all-cargo flights between Gothenburg and Hong Kong. This is the result of a newly signed contract between SAS Cargo and Emirates SkyCargo. The contract replaces SAS Cargo's current contract with Lufthansa Cargo, which ran out. 

"We are very satisfied that the new contract and we look forward to working with Emirates SkyCargo. We have been very pleased with our long cooperation with Lufthansa Cargo regarding the Hong Kong freighter, but the contract ran out and we had to search the market for replacement capacity. None of our other WOW-partners were able to offer the capacity we were looking for, so when we heard that Emirates SkyCargo wanted to start up a freighter to Hong Kong, we contacted them," said Kenneth Marx, President and CEO of SAS Cargo Group A/S.

The route will be Gothenburg - Dubai - Hong Kong, and the days of departure from Scandinavia will remain the same, Saturday and Monday, but SAS Cargo's customers will be able to see a small improvement since the departure times have been moved slightly. This means that the current departure on Monday evenings has been moved forward to Monday mornings, which means that the goods will be delivered to customers one day earlier in Hong Kong.

The agreement between SAS Cargo and Emirates SkyCargo is a so-called "blocked space" agreement where SAS Cargo is buying a part of the cargo capacity onboard the Boeing 747-400 freighter. Combined with the cargo capacity onboard SAS' Airbus 340 passenger flights to China, SAS Cargo's freight capacity directly to China is approximately 400 tons per week. The destinations are Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong. Furthermore, SAS Cargo is investigating the possibilities of adding further capacity to Hong Kong in the spring of 2005.

See other recent news from: SAS