Press release -
Setting hearts on fire with flowers of love
Lufthansa Cargo to transport 900 tonnes of roses to Europe for Valentine’s Day
When it comes to expressing our affection, we like to “say it with flowers” on February 14. Roses have been a symbol of love and beauty since ancient times. To serve the especially high import demand around Valentine’s Day, Lufthansa Cargo transports 900 tonnes of the long-stemmed flowers on the Quito – Frankfurt, Bogotá – Frankfurt and Nairobi – Frankfurt routes this year – equivalent to some 10 million individual roses. The roses are being imported over a period of about three weeks.
Most of the roses begin their journey in Colombia, Ecuador or Kenya. These countries have the ideal climate for cultivating these flowers and the best growing conditions all year round. To ensure these floral tokens of love reach their recipients in full bloom, they must be transported quickly and carefully at a constant temperature of two to four degrees Celsius along the entire logistics chain. Europe’s leading cargo airline has developed the special Fresh product specifically for the transportation of perishable goods such as flowers and food.
The roses are harvested several times a day at the flower farms in Africa and South America and then immediately placed in water and cooled. Following sorting and packing, the flowers are taken directly to the airport and loaded onto the freighters. The flowers only remain in Frankfurt Airport for a short while. Just a few hours after landing, the roses are transported onwards from this city on the Main river out into all of Europe – primarily to other German cities, but also to neighboring countries, including Austria and Switzerland.
Please find press photos here.
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Lufthansa Cargo AG
Lufthansa Cargo ranks among the world’s leading air freight carriers. In the 2017 business year, the airline transported around 1.6 million tonnes of freight and mail and sold 8.9 billion revenue tonne- kilometres. The company currently employs about 4,500 people worldwide. Lufthansa Cargo focuses on the airport-to-airport business. The cargo carrier serves around 300 destinations in more than 100 countries with its own fleet of freighters, the belly capacities of passenger aircraft operated by Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Eurowings, and an extensive road feeder service network. The bulk of the cargo business is routed through Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa Cargo is a wholly owned Lufthansa subsidiary of Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
