Shipping's Moveable Feast

For seafood carriers, shipping can take on a whole new scale when it's done right

Nicole Nelson

n order to dine upon day-old Copper River salmon in a trendy New York City bistro or freshly farmed shrimp in the comfort of a Manhattan, Kan., household, air cargo shipping is necessary to ensure quality of fish and shellfish.

The demand for high-quality fresh fish such as salmon and tuna is growing, and air freight operators are both feeding the trend and helping fuel the expansion. According to the National Fisheries Institute, Americans eat 16.5 pounds of seafood annually per capita, 74 percent of which is of the fresh and frozen variety. To meet the demand, airlines including Alaska Airlines and Icelandair Cargo have made special arrangements to accommodate this popular perishable product group.

Alaska plays a significant role in transporting fresh Alaska seafood, flying more than 26 million pounds of it to the lower 48 states and beyond each year.

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"When you talk about Copper River salmon and the very high demand products, you can pick about any location in the world where there are high-end restaurants and you will have it a day after it is caught in Cordova," said Alaska Airlines Managing Director of Cargo Matt Yerbic.

He said 90 to 95 percent of seafood shipped by the airline is out of Alaska. "We actually play an interesting role there because we ship the majority of this product on our planes. We could have fish caught at 8 p.m. that could be eaten for lunch the next day in Boston or New York," Yerbic said.

Alaska's seafood volume fluctuates greatly daily dependent upon season and demand.

"In the seafood world today, the seasons have really been protracted," Yerbic said, attributing lengthened harvests to great strides made in fishery management. "Where our opener times historically have been within a few weeks, followed by little to no volume, we now have a season that starts for us in January with cod from Kodiak, then halibut from Southeast Alaska in March," he said. "The big pressure comes in May with the Copper River salmon kicking off the summer season that is pretty consistent through the end of September."

On May 15, 2007 Alaska delivered 160,000 pounds of the coveted Copper River salmon on eight flights from Cordova, Alaska, to Seattle.

Much of the fish was flown on to cities across the country using Alaska's system that ensures the fish remain in a high-quality state when delivered.

Alaska has an area in its cargo control center specifically tasked with managing seafood bookings as part of a $3 million cargo shipment-management and accounting system introduced last year.

Using a centralized database, the system provides detailed cargo tracking information, automates customer billing and allows customers to make flight-specific cargo reservations.

"We are a little unusual among carriers in that we require all of our customers to book their seafood in advance because we want to ensure that we will be able to move it exactly when we say we're going to," Yerbic said.

In addition to substantial investments in facilities across the network, including large cooling and freezing facilities at its Seattle hub, Alaska has made sound investments in aircraft that allow the airline to carry perishables. As part of an initiative to improve service to cargo customers, the airline retrofitted six 737-400 cargo aircraft - one freighter and five combis - to replace the carrier's 737-200 cargo fleet.

While Alaska carries differing amounts of seafood in every airplane in the airline's lineup of 114 aircraft, those specifically modified to carry extra amounts of cargo have been a source of commemoration.

"We are the only carrier in the world that flies both the 737-400 freighter and the 737-400 combi aircraft," Yerbic said. "To celebrate that fact, we have an airplane, the 'Salmon-Thirty-Salmon,' a 737-400 passenger aircraft painted with a 120-foot-long image of an Alaska king salmon. It signifies how critical this product is not only to the State, but also to the customer."

Alaska has invested roughly $100 million in its air cargo initiative, of which most is for the airplanes, as well as several million dollars in new systems to support the aircraft and help manage the product as it goes through our network.

"We have the technology that most carriers would love to have related to scanning and real-time tracking online - the types of advancements that our customers really need, particularly in this state where the shippers need to know where their perishables are and what is happening with it," Yerbic said.

Seafood is an important commodity for both the airline and the communities it serves in Alaska. Of 20 locations served, only two have roads that lead to them.

"We may, in cases, provide the only service in and out of those locations with big airplanes," Yerbic said. "Because of that fact, we have a special obligation to make sure we are a good member of the community and are willing to invest in airplanes that can serve them.

"In this case, the 737-400 combi allows those communities to get more capacity, which allows them to fish more, which makes their economies grow. We take it seriously and it is a big bit of our business."

Seafood is also very healthy for Icelandair Cargo.

The commodity comprises 95 percent of the country's exports. While the falling value of the U.S. dollar has slackened seafood movements from 2,000 tons per month in 2006 to 1,750 tons of in 2007, the airline continues to move 80 tons of cod, haddock and other locally fished seafood out of Reykjavik on a daily basis. Most of the product arrives at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport by freighter or in Boston via daily passenger flight for further distribution by North Coast Seafood and Aquanor.

Icelandair Cargo Director of Sales and Marketing Róbert Tómasson said the airline has seen a nearly 40 percent decline of exports to the United States in the past year, counterbalanced by growth in exports to the United Kingdom and consistent demand in mainland Europe.

"We have five 757 freighters and our warehouse facility here in Iceland - a huge warehouse with nothing but coolers in there," Tómasson said. "We're very much into the perishable freight movements with nine cooler rooms filled with unit load devices that can hold approximately 50 tons to 60 tons at any given time at a controlled temperature."

The fish within tend to come from small fishing boats dispatched from all over Iceland.

"The boats go out in the morning and come back in the afternoons," Tómasson said. "In the areas that are close to the airport, they will actually get fish flown out for the following day."

The fish from small boats is not frozen, but kept chilled onboard the vessels to keep the temperature around zero until they start filleting the fish at area processing plants. There, the shippers package the fish to Icelandair Cargo's specifications - styrofoam boxes chilled with gel mats at a temperature between 0 and 4 degrees Celsius - and drive the goods to the Reykjavik airport to transfer into the cooler there.

"That is a receiving requirement and then it is our job to maintain that temperature," said Tómasson. "The styrofoam boxes are set for 24-hour transport. So once the consignee or the buyer get the fish, it is usually within six hours to 12 hours that they get the fish, so the temperature should be the same as when it was packed in the plant here in Iceland.

"The buyer, the seller and the producer are all trying to maintain this temperature all the way through. If the temperature goes up, it is not going to be good fish."

Tómasson said the carrier moves mostly filleted, or value-added fish. "If you're moving the whole fish, you are moving a lot of bones and fish parts that will be thrown away, and you are paying by the pound," Tómasson said. Rates vary, he said, but a rate for a 1,000-pound shipment going from Iceland to Boston averages $1.90 per kilo.

Tómasson said Iceland-fished haddock is heavily consumed on the Northeastern coast from Maine all the way down to New Jersey, and also has followings in California and demand in Washington state. To deliver the goods to locations that can't be reached via truck, Icelandair Cargo uses an interline agreement with Northwest Airlines to fly the fish into Northwest's Minneapolis hub and on to further destinations, such Seattle and San Francisco.

While 95 percent of cargo from Iceland to the U.S. is seafood, only 10 percent of cargo from the U.S. to Iceland reflects an equal product. However, Icelandair Cargo has a strategy to expand on these North American numbers with plans to move into Canada, with Toronto and Halifax service starting in February. Live lobster from Eastern Canada will be flown the reverse route into the European market.

Tómasson hopes the new Canada to Europe routes will mirror the full bellies found on U.S. to Europe routes over the holidays. "At this time of year, we are fighting for space. We are moving a lot of lobster these days to Scandinavia," he said.