Tunisia to start 25 new air cargo routes

TUNIS, Jan. 9 (Xinhua) -- The Tunisian airline Express Air Cargo, Tunisia's leading air cargo operator, announced on Tuesday the launch of 25 air cargo routes from Tunis and mainly to other African countries, starting from January 2018.

The company's Chief Executive Officer Anis Riahi said that 21 services will cover "a wide range of countries in Central and West Africa."

According to Riahi, two major projects are planned this year. The first is a 3,000-square-meter cargo store being built in the Tunis-Carthage International Airport, and the second is a Boeing certified maintenance center, which will soon be operational with 90 million dinars (36 million U.S. dollars) of investment and 40 aeronautical engineers employed.

Express Air Cargo has provided more than 600 flight connections and more than 4,500 flight hours in 2017. Riahi added that they hope to help strengthen "an inter-African logistics network."

Riahi believes that his company "is able to make Tunis-Carthage International Airport a real hub by establishing a bridge linking Africa, Europe and also the Middle East," adding that "this triangulation of all cargo will be a valuable asset for economic development and trade."

Air connections via this company are provided by Boeing 737-400 wide-body aircraft with a capacity of 26 tonnes. For the first half of 2018, four new aircraft will be operational, the first of which will provide a daily connection in West and Central Africa, while the other three will be based in Douala, Cameroon and Conakry, Guinea. Enditem