Senator expands charter network with China flights

Freight forwarder Senator International is expanding its SAB air charter network with flights to China in response to supply chain disruption.

Senator said that from September 8 it will begin offering a flight to China for the first time – a twice-weekly charter flight between Tianjin and Hannover utilising a B767-300 converted freighter.

The company will also offer a daily trucking service connecting Tianjin with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

“The global Air Cargo industry is facing major challenges,” Senator said in a statement. “Global demand exceeds available capacity. Due to new Covid cases in China the situation has gotten worse.

“The Chinese government has imposed further restrictions that impact the ground handling at airports. This results in dramatic disruptions in global air cargo traffic and therefore effects the supply chain of our customers.”

Senator will also increase its existing flights between Frankfurt Hahn and Chicago Rockford to three times per week and earlier this month it upped its Frankurt-Hahn to Greenville-Spartanburg operation to daily.

“With the expansion of our SAB routes, we are responding to the current market situation,” said Tim-Oliver Kirschbaum, chief executive of Senator International. “With additional frequencies and the new destination Tianjin, we are offering our customers a higher flexibility and transparency to move their airfreight ”

Senator is not the only forwarder to have expanded its charter network over the last couple of weeks.

Earlier this week, DSV added a new “globetrotter” service while Geodis has signed up for a long-term operation between China, Europe and North America.