Oslo Airport has gained another freighter route as starting from 1 September Suparna Airlines will start a twice-weekly connection to Nanjing.
The Chinese carrier will operate a Boeing 747-400F to the Nanjing Airport, located west of Shanghai, to meet the growing demand for fresh Norwegian seafood.
Suparna Airlines is a part of the Chinese HNA Group, who also owns and operates Hainan Airlines. It operates a fleet of 15 freighters from bases in China.
The B747F will leave Oslo Airport at 16.30h on Thursdays and Sundays, and arrive in Nanjing at 09.00h (local times) in the morning the following day.
Avinor is the airport’s operator and director of cargo, Martin Langaas said: “With the planned operations, we expect seafood up to about 250 million NOK in export value annually on this route.”
Demand for Norwegian seafood continues to grow. In May, AirBridgeCargo Airlines increased capacity, when it added a third weekly freighter flight to Moscow, to meet demand.
Oslo Airport is looking to expand infrastructure to meet growth, but in May, Avinor and Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) terminated a letter of intent signed in August 2018 for construction and operation of a new seafood centre at the gateway.
The centre was being built to meet rising demand for Norwegian seafood. Air cargo tonnage of fresh fish reached 230,000 tonnes last year.
Oslo Airport is the largest freighter airport in Northern Europe and among the freighter airlines flying from the airport are Turkish Cargo, Saudia Cargo, Ethiopian Cargo, Emirates SkyCargo, AirBridgeCargo, and Cargolux.
Further seafood capacity has been added this year. On 1 March, CAL Cargo Airlines added second weekly rotation from Oslo to Tel Aviv while in January Slovakian carrier Air Cargo Global started a new Boeing 747-440F route between Oslo and Tianjin in China.
