Turkish Cargo sets sights on North America

Friendly face for forwarders

The global reach of Turkish Airlines is, indeed, vast, serving more than 280 destinations – including 55 freighter destinations – in 110 countries, giving credence the carrier’s claim to be the airline flying to the highest number of nations in the world. Such a wide footprint has made Turkish Cargo a familiar and generally reliable option for the world’s freight forwarders.

For instance, Esther Kabugi, the station manager for the Kenyan branch of logistics firm DSV, said Turkish Cargo has had a positive impact on DSV Air and Sea. “As a global partner airline, Turkish is on the list of our priority airlines, as it’s an airline that flies to many global destinations,” she said. The variety of destinations served by the carrier is crucial to DSV, which ships Kenyan roses (highly in demand due to their extended vase-life) to consigneesspanning the globe. “That means a friendly face locally and abroad at our destinations, with local and Turkish manpower at hand,” to provide cargo tracking, e-services and strict temperature controls, she said.

However, with Turkish’s high-quality service at a competitive price, Kabugi said demand for its services is so high that the carrier doesn’t always have the capacity to handle cargo volumes during peak periods. In the U.S., many forwarders had similar positive comments about the impressive breadth of Turkish Cargo’s network, but also expressed concern about the level of service they were able to provide. Hing “Sotha” Buon, imports manager at Air Schott, a freight forwarder based at Dulles Airport outside Washington, D.C., said Turkish is reliable, timely and moves freight fast, with no damage claims on the daily passenger flight that Turkish operates through Dulles. But Buon’s colleague, export manager Carlos Balta, said Turkish Cargo has had a few incidences of damaged belly cargo and has had a history of spotty communication with its clients. He said he gets quicker answers from his overseas agents. Another problem, Balta pointed out, is that the carrier doesn’t update its IT system regularly.

Cavalier Logistics, another Dulles-based forwarder that works with Turkish mainly on the export side, has had similar experiences with the carrier, but has also seen improvement in customer service. Robbie Neilson, director of Cavalier’s global logistics, agreed with Buon and Balta about the network, saying “they’ve dramatically improved over the past 12 months.” He said the carrier is “acceptable” for being on time, and he hasn’t had many claims.

Turkish has also been valuable for handling certain types of cargo not every carrier accepts. “Most of the time we deal with firearms for sporting and military,” Balta said. “Many airlines won’t deal with firearms, and you don’t need a transit permit to ship firearms through Istanbul.” He said 90 percent of the exports Air Schott transports with Turkish Cargo are firearms; the balance is personal effects and technology. Neilson, at Cavalier, said he uses Turkish’s network to get freight to remote places, such as North Africa, Nepal and what he referred to as “the Stans,” for example Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan. Most of Cavalier’s exports are general and diplomatic cargo for the U.S. government.