The Egyptian charter company, AirMaster (IATA: MR), began flying perishables from Cairo to Hahn Airport, last week. It operates two B737-800BCFs, which can uplift 22 tons per flight. Most shipments are addressed to DHL Food Logistics and the Belgian Tulpin Group. While DHL supplies German wholesalers such as the Rewe and Edeka supermarket chains, the Tulpin Group’s trucks travel from Hahn across the Channel to the UK, to supply local wholesalers. In addition, Egyptair Cargo’s A330F land twice a week at Hahn or Ostende airport, supporting AirMaster’s strawberry shuttles. According to Tulpin CEO, Alain Tulpin, this year the strawberry season in Egypt started around two weeks earlier compared to last year. In addition, crops are already looking more promising than in 2024.
That has spurred the demand for main deck capacity to transport the perishables from the fields to the consumer markets in Central and Western Europe. While in the past, Egyptair utilized its own freighter fleet to transport the goods, this season the carrier can only use a limited number of freighter aircraft to complete the task, as part of its fleet is contractually bound to fly e-commerce shipments from China to Europe. The early strawberry season came as real surprise to retailers and air carriers, explains Alain Tulpin. However, from DEC25 onwards, Egyptair will provide more main deck capacity again.
Due to the challenging situation, the carrier has decided to charter freighters from newcomer AirMaster. According to Lotfi Zekkour, COO of handling agent, Hahn Cargo, the MR shuttles will continue until Christmas, serving HHN at least once, mostly twice a day.
The contact between both sides was established during a telephone call. Cairo’s Egyptair Cargo HQ contacted him and asked whether ground handling agent Hahn Cargo could manage the perishables business without any hiccups. “Since I was born in North Africa and therefore speak Arabic, there was a linguistic and cultural tie between us right from the first phone call,” he recalls, which obviously helped to establish the strawberry chain. Following further calls, landing at another airport in Germany or the Benelux countries was off the table for the AirMaster management, Lotfi told CargoForwarder Global. “This is also because our handling speed is extremely high. Even on very cold days, there is no risk of frost damage, which guarantees product integrity. We also achieve high throughput speeds because the local plant protection agents provide us with tremendous support.”
Around 60% of the shipments unloaded at HHN remain in Germany, while the Tulpin Group transports a substantial portion to the UK via the Channel Tunnel. This is rounded up by a smaller number of strawberry shipments that are brought from Hahn Airport to France by French forwarding agent, Sotracom.
