OREANDA-NEWS. 2nd March 2015: It was double honours for Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of Emirates, at the Air Cargo Africa Awards when it scooped both the “Global Cargo Airline Of The Year” and “Air Cargo Brand of the Year” awards. It was the third time Emirates SkyCargo won the “Global Cargo Airline of the Year Award” at the event, having previously picked up the accolade in 2011 and 2013.

Air Cargo Africa, which was recently held in Johannesburg, South Africa, is an international biennial air cargo trade show and awards event organised by STAT Times and serves as an industry platform to showcase one of the economy’s key sectors. The awards event is aimed at fostering excellence in the air cargo industry, with award winners decided on the basis of results of online participation by worldwide readers of STAT Times. 

“We are honoured to receive this recognition voted for by our customers and partners. We believe these accolades are an important endorsement of the hard work by our various teams around our global network and hub in Dubai,” said Pradeep Kumar, Emirates’ Senior Vice President, Revenue Optimisation and Systems, Cargo, who received the awards on the air cargo carrier’s behalf. 

“At Emirates SkyCargo we continually focus on providing our customers with the best solutions for their specific needs, whether it is the movement of general cargo to more specialised goods such as pharmaceuticals. Innovation and customer service is something we invest heavily in to ensure we remain a leader in the industry. We are also very happy to be at this event being held in Africa, which is a key region for us as we grow our operations and create more trade links between Africa and destinations across our extensive global network,” he added. 

Emirates SkyCargo has become a valued partner for many local businesses across the continent, carrying goods to and from 27 African points to Emirates’ network of more than 145 destinations across six continents. Five of the 27 destinations, Djibouti, Eldoret, Kano, Lilongwe and the recently added Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso, are scheduled freighter services, while nine destinations are both passenger and cargo, and includes for example, Johannesburg, Lagos, Nairobi, Addis Ababa, Accra and Entebbe. 

Emirates SkyCargo operates a fleet of 14 freighters, 12 Boeing 777 Fs and two Boeing 747-400 ERFs, which operate to over 50 scheduled freighter routes from its new cargo terminal, Emirates SkyCentral at Dubai World Central’s Al Maktoum International Airport.