UPS is scaling up its activities in Africa with a cargo airline venture that will serve up to 51 destinations across the continent from a hub in Tunisia, connecting with flights to its European air hub, from next January.
The new airline, ‘Express Air Cargo’, is being set up by Express Logistic, the UPS partner in Tunisia, and will operate out of Enfidha-Hammamet airport, officials announced in Tunis yesterday (October 21).
Anis Riahi, managing director of Express Logistic – UPS, told local journalists that he wanted to make Tunisia into a cargo hub for Africa, with daily flights to 51 destinations across the continent, including North, West, Central and Southern Africa. He named South Africa, Nigeria and Ghana among the planned destinations.
Express Air Cargo will take off next January with two planes (one B737 and one CRJ 200), add four more aircraft (one B767, a second CRJ 200 and two Cessnas) in April 2016 and be expanded to a fleet of seven planes with a second B767 next September, according to Tunisian media reports.
Some 46 million dinars (€21 million) will be invested into the new airline over the next three years, creating 800 direct and 400 indirect jobs in the first two years.
The Tunisian entrepreneur expressed his “pride in having succeeded in creating an African hub for cargo transport in order to contribute to the national effort to promote Tunisia as a reliable country for foreign investors”.
The airline venture follows the launch of daily flights from the UPS European air hub at Cologne/Bonn via Malta to Enfidha in January 2015. These flights have so far carried more than 2,000 tonnes of export and import shipments, according to officials.
By using Tunisia as the location for an Africa hub, UPS can transfer international shipments between European and Africa destinations while developing intra-regional trade links between African countries, observers noted.
Last August rival TNT launched five weekly B737 flights to Enfidha from its Liege hub via Marseille.
