Growing Dulles International Airport as a cargo hub may start with flowers

[Williee Armellini]

Growing Dulles International Airport as a cargo hub may start with flowers
Washington Business Journal by Michael Neibauer, Staff Reporter
Date: Friday, April 13, 2012, 2:40pm EDT
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The first shipment of Hypericum flowers from Ethiopia are offloaded Feb. 13 from an Ethiopian Airlines flight at Dulles.


Michael Neibauer
Staff Reporter - Washington Business Journal
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Expanding Dulles International Airport into a cargo hub will not happen overnight.
It will require, as we report in Friday's Washington Business Journal, hundreds of thousands of square feet of new warehouse and facility space on and off the Dulles footprint, a widened of Route 606 from two to four lanes, and stronger ties between the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority (MWAA), Loudoun County, the airlines, manufacturers, freight forwarders and haulers.
These things take time, and a lot of money. But perhaps the effort starts small: with flowers.
In February, Dulles welcomed the first shipment of Hypericum flowers from Ethiopia — nearly two tons delivered by Ethiopian Airlines. The highlands of Ethiopia are a world hotspot for the budding flower market, thanks to its elevation, soil quality and weather conditions.
The flower shipments have continued weekly ever since.
Ethiopian Airlines, MWAA officials say, could have delivered those flowers to Kennedy Airport in New York or Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, the major East Coast cargo players. But it chose Dulles, ranked the 19th largest cargo airport in North America, according to the Airports Council International.
The ultimate goal of the Dulles air cargo initiative is to diversify Loudoun's economy, generate greater airport landing fees for MWAA, create jobs and perhaps lure high-value manufacturing and pharmaceutical firms to Northern Virginia.
Dulles has the acreage to grow. It is strategically located in the middle of the eastern seaboard. And it has the international passenger flights, many with significant unused capacity in the belly to support an abundance of cargo.
But that doesn't happen unless Dulles can draw in more product to both import and export. Maybe it has already started, with a rose.

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2012/04/growing-dulles-as-a-cargo-hub-may.html

[gchoice]

Another MidAmerica, Houston or ?

[gunnerN12]

Probably or. At present there is no gateway for Africa, so if they can get the jump on hubs such as Miami and New York they have a good chance of being a player. It is my understanding that most large hubs such as New York and Miami have little interest in perishable items from Africa in the current economic and Homeland security climate.

[bloemenmorgen]

No fumigation facility .
Bye bye flowers.

[Williee Armellini]

No problem they can just do what many other airport floral startups had to do. Send the critter to Miami for ID and wait!

[Islandtime]

So far the direct flights out of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, into Dulles have gone off without a hitch and there has been no issues with PQ.  The flight does make a stop in Rome for re-fueling, but that process takes less than an hour.   It will be extremely interesting to see if their volumes grow.  

[SunKissedFlowers]

Very interesting to read this new article on the project, and to be honest, the route is going quite well. We are now importing the 11th week in a row and we are doing between 750 – 1500kgs per week.

At this point we are supplying the US market with the Ethiopian grown Hypericum Coco Series, Veronica Smart Aliens and Rosa Plaza Roses. http://www.hypericumcoco.com & http://www.rosaplaza.nl

The Phytosanitary rejections remain a very crucial point of attention. For this reason, we exclusively import from farms that have experience in exporting to difficult PQ countries like Japan and Australia.

When Dulles would invest in cold chain and warehousing facilities, it could allow us to distribute directly out of Dulles, something which is now still mostly done out of Miami.  

Out of Miami the boxes have been distributed to various places in the US like San Francisco, Boston, Chicago and Austin, all distributions arrived in good conditions.

We are hoping to slowly grow our presence in the United States and we appreciate the great effort put in by all our logistic partners and the Metropolitan Washington Airport Authorities. Who are and have been very supportive for business.

If you are interested in our Ethiopian grown flowers or would like to know more about our product please feel free to post your questions here or to contact us via the email. willum@hypericumcoco.com

[Bucket Girl]

Interesting airline news. I can see the shipping expanding into IAD.Room for growth!