DHL Aviation, Nippon Express and the GSSA Aero Cargo France (a subsidiary of ECS Group) combined to move 225 tonnes of Beaujolais Nouveau to Japan from France.
“Through our partnership with Aero Cargo France, our GSA representative in France, we take pride in our direct customer engagement. During the 2019 Beaujolais Nouveau season, DHL & Aero Cargo not only used DHL’s five weekly Narita flights to promote our network to Beaujolais customers in France, we also ensured a full end-to-end customer service delivery through a flight arrival event at Narita Airport to mark the arrival of the first 90 tons of this year’s Beaujolais season,” said Kim Van Assche, VP Sales Europe at DHL Aviation.
Work between the partners to set up this large-scale operation began earlier in the year, with a contract signed in July and the first development in September.
“We are regularly involved in shipping Beaujolais Nouveau. Thanks to good relationships with Nippon Express and the trust that DHL Aviation has in us and in our ability to optimize the way in which Beaujolais is marketed, this operation was a great success,” said Jean Ceccaldi, Managing Director of Aero Cargo France.
“The main difficulty is the natural factor, which is by definition beyond control. Indeed, the availability of the wine with sufficient time for all the logistics required before the air shipment is the crucial point. But this year, nature was on our side and all worked well,” added Mr Ceccaldi.
To move the French wine from Paris (CDG) to Tokyo (NRT), three operations were needed: two full charters plus another shipment. The two charters arrived at NRT on November 5 and 12 respectively.