News / Ex-China ecommerce switch hits freighter capacity for perishables

The switch in trade flows from the US to Europe by Chinese e-commerce marketplaces, following the elimination of the de minimis threshold by the Trump administration, has created a serious shortage of wide-body freighter capacity on the charter market.

And perishables traffic has been particularly hard-hit, according to one major player in the segment.

Air freight forwarder Tulpin Group has embarked on a seasonal campaign to transport and distribute around 16,000 tonnes of strawberries by air, mainly from Egypt, to destinations in Europe over the next four to five months, with 70% of the volumes bound for UK supermarkets.

AIain Tulpin, fourth-generation CEO of the family firm based near Ostend Airport, told The Loadstar : “Even before the de minimis exemption was removed by the US authorities it was already very difficult to obtain wide-body freighter capacity, because the Chinese-origin ecommerce trade was so strong and lucrative that it was pulling all-cargo aircraft from Africa and Latin America to China.

“China-Europe e-commerce is now soaking up a lot of freighter capacity with almost no large freighters, such as B747s, available in the peak December period. We’ve had to turn to B737Fs and A321Fs, which have much smaller payloads and don’t come cheap in terms of chartering costs.”

Although the majority of Egypt-origin strawberries are bound for the UK, Mr Tulpin prefers to ship the fruit via Ostend and Frankfurt Hahn airports, notably but not exclusively, using EgyptAir’s 58-tonne capacity A330 freighters; the carrier having return cargo from these airports.

The airline is due to add fourth A330F next July.

But it raises the question of why the company does not use direct Egypt-UK air services ?

“EgyptAir flies daily to London Heathrow with one wide-body and one or two narrow-body passenger aircraft, and cargo capacity is limited. As for freighters, it is difficult to operate them to schedule at busy UK airports,”  explained Mr Tulpin, who described ground handling of cargo at Heathrow as a “nightmare”, and the airport as “congested, on too big a scale and lacking in organisation”.

He said the time between shipments landing at Heathrow and forwarding agents taking the goods from airlines’ ground handlers “was often over 12 hours.” 

In comparison, shipments through Ostend and Hahn can reach London faster than those at Heathrow, “as we use the Getlink shuttle for on-forwarding to the UK.”  

Tulpin Group’s transport division, Ostendfresh, has a fleet of 45 reefer trailers to ensure “the smooth transfer of goods from the continent to UK,” and carries out more than 6,000 Channel crossings a year, he said.

“We have used this system via the Channel Tunnel to ship strawberries to the UK since 2000 and know its advantages. In addition, we use the site in Hythe, Kent, to undertake deferred checks and customs-clear the goods into the UK.”

This autumn, Ostend Airport and Getlink subsidiary LeShuttle Freight adopted the system within the framework of “a strategic partnership”.

Tulpin generates 90% of its turnover from fruit and vegetables and the remaining 10% from other perishables (fish, meat, flowers) and general cargo.

Despite the shortage of wide-body freighter capacity, it  is expecting annual turnover to rise by around 30% this year, compared with 2024, as a result of an increase in tonnages, concluded Mr Tulpin.