FRANKFURT/MIAMI: February 12, 2019. Lufthansa Cargo has carried 900 tonnes of long-stemmed roses from Quito and Bogota to Frankfurt, and from Nairobi to Frankfurt over a three-week period this year – equivalent to 10 million individual stems. The roses were imported over a period of three weeks.

To ensure the flowers arrived in ideal condition, the airline used its ‘Fresh/td’ perishables service to maintain an ambient temperature between two and four degrees Celsius along the logistics supply chain from grower to retailer.

The roses were harvested several times a day from flower farms in Africa and South America and immediately placed in water and cooled. After sorting, packing, airport delivery and aircraft loading, the multiple shipments spent a few hours in transit at Frankfurt before final delivery to cities throughout Germany as well as destinations in Austria and Switzerland.

Meanwhile, UPS has been busy optimizing its network between North and South America to deliver an estimated 89 million flowers in 48 hours via its Miami hub to retailers in the US and Canada. The airline said it added 50 extra flights during the peak period to handle over 517,000 bloom-filled boxes.

“The need for a reliable logistics partner is crucial for us to spread joy and love to our customers around the globe,” commented Galo Sanchez, executive vice president of The Elite Flower, Colombia’s largest privately-owned flower farm. “Because we know millions of sweethearts are counting on us, every year, we depend on UPS’s operational expertise to ensure that love blooms on Valentine’s Day.”