(UPDATED Sept. 8, 9:45 am. ET)
The cargo airline owned by ocean shipping giant A.P. Moller Maersk is operating aircraft to South America for the first time after initially focusing on the North America, Europe and Asia markets.
Maersk Air Cargo began flying scheduled service from its hub at Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport in South Carolina to Bogota, Colombia, in March and from its other hub at Chicago-Rockford International Airport to Santiago, Chile, in May, Maersk spokesman Rainer Horn told FreightWaves in an email message.
The routes are operated twice per week with Maersk-owned Boeing 767-300 cargo jets, with flying outsourced to Miami-based partner Amerijet, he said. A variety of commodities, including e-commerce orders, are carried on southbound legs, with return flights typically carrying perishable goods and flowers.
The Maersk Air Cargo fleet consists of nine Boeing 767-200s, 10 767-300s and two Boeing 777 freighters. All the 767-200s and several -300s are separately operated under contract with express delivery carriers, such as UPS, in Europe. In its dual capacity as an airfreight forwarder, Maersk also directly controls several Boeing 747-400 jumbo jets under a long-term charter service agreement with Magma Aviation.
Amerijet has been providing pilots and routine maintenance for Maersk’s air network operating between the U.S. and Asia since late 2022. Seoul, South Korea, previously was a commercial stop, but is now just used for refueling, Horn said.
Maersk handled 327,000 tons of cargo last year, up 11% year over year, and is aiming for 500,000 tons by 2030, according to the company’s annual report and a webinar.
Maersk Air Cargo is currently the 15th largest airfreight forwarder by volume, according to Armstrong & Associates.
Maersk established an airline to move the cargo of its own customers after the Covid crisis as part of a broader transformation from a pure ocean carrier to an end-to-end logistics provider able to provide a suite of services.
The airline operates two flights per week from Greenville-Spartanburg (GSP) to Zhengzhou, China, via Seattle and five times per week from Hangzhou, China, to Chicago-Rockford (RFD). After offloading shipments at RFD, the Amerijet-operated flights continue to Santiago and then return to China via RFD. The network also has multiple weekly frequencies from Hangzhou to Maersk’s hub in Liege, Belgium, and from Zhengzhou to its global hub in Billand, Denmark. From Liege, flights cross the Atlantic to GSP and RFD.
New airfreight management
Meanwhile, Maersk has hired two experienced airfreight executives who previously worked at DB Schenker, where an exodus of personnel is underway following the acquisition by third-party logistics provider DSV.
Christoph Hemmann has been appointed as head of global air and less-than-containerload under the Maersk Logistics & Services organization. He replaced Murali Rajamani, who was transferred to another position within Maersk. Also, John McDonald is the new head of Maersk Air Freight Forwarding, taking over from John Wetherell who left Maersk, the company said in a press release.
Hemmann was executive vice president for Asia Pacific at DB Schenker and also held leadership positions at DHL Global Forwarding before that. In his new role he will be responsible for Maersk’s cargo airline and its 18 aircraft
McDonald is a 35-year logistics veteran who was executive vice president and head of airfreight for Americas at DB Schenker. Prior to that he held airfreight management roles at STG Logistics, UTi Worldwide and Ceva Logistics.
(Correction: An earlier version of this story indicated Maersk Air Cargo owned 18 aircraft. It has 21 freighters.)
Click here for more FreightWaves/American Shipper stories by Eric Kulisch.
Write to Eric Kulisch at ekulisch@freightwaves.com.
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