Keeping up its unwavering commitment to deliver food, medical supplies and other essential commodities to markets across the world during the COVID-19 pandemic, Emirates SkyCargo has rapidly scaled up its cargo services to connect an increasing number of global destinations.

The air cargo carrier currently operates flights to 51 destinations globally, out of which 19 cities are served by the Emirates SkyCargo Boeing 777 freighter aircraft offering up to 100 tonnes of capacity per flight, while 38 destinations are served by dedicated cargo flights on Emirates’ Boeing 777 passenger aircraft offering up to 50 tonnes belly capacity.

Nabil Sultan, Emirates divisional senior vice president, cargo, said: “We have particularly ramped up operations for transporting cargo in the bellyhold of our passenger aircraft in the last two weeks. Emirates SkyCargo has been expanding its network on a daily basis and some of the latest destinations for our cargo flights on passenger aircraft include Bangkok, Casablanca, Johannesburg, Singapore and Taipei. Air cargo remains the fastest means of connecting essential supplies to those that need them and our expanded network allows for increased connectivity across different global origins and destinations.”

During the week ending April 4, Emirates SkyCargo had operated more than 160 flights on its freighter aircraft and close to 90 flights on its passenger aircraft. The following week, the air cargo carrier had operated close to 160 flights on its passenger aircraft alone.

The main commodities transported on the charter flights are medical supplies

In order to streamline operations and cut costs under rapidly changing global conditions, Emirates SkyCargo has also transferred all of its cargo handling operations in Dubai to Dubai International Airport.

Over and above scheduled operations, Emirates SkyCargo has also operated an increasing number of special charter flights for cargo both on its freighter and passenger aircraft.

Since the start of April, the carrier has executed more than 30 charter flights connecting over 20 global destinations. The main commodities transported on the charter flights are medical supplies including face masks, protective covers, sanitisers, equipment for hospitals in addition to pharmaceuticals, raw materials and spare parts.

In the space of just three days between April 7 and 9, some of the notable charters operated by Emirates SkyCargo included 100 tonnes of masks and other protective supplies transported from Guangzhou to Dubai on April 7, close to 100 tonnes of medical supplies including masks and other protective equipment transported on April 8 from Shanghai to Mumbai on the Emirates SkyCargo Boeing 777 freighter and close to one million COVID-19 testing kits to be transported to Sao Paulo on April 9.

An earlier shipment containing 500,000 kits was transported on March 30.

Emirates SkyCargo has a dynamic and responsive team handling charter operations. In some cases, the team has been able to deploy aircraft within 24 hours of the original request coming in for a charter operation.

As per UAE government directives to protect communities against the spread of COVID-19, Emirates has temporarily suspended all passenger flights from March 25. The airline will resume passenger services as soon as it is possible to do so.