Freight Caviar: 8 facts about humanitarian shipments to Ukraine

The war in Ukraine has been going on since Feb. 24. As a former freight broker, I wanted to get a deeper understanding of how humanitarian shipments work. What goods are being shipped and from where? How do the shipments that pass through Poland make it to Ukraine? 

To get a clearer picture, I sat down with Bartosz Samulak from the Polish Forwarding Co. and Brian Bourke from Seko Logistics to answer some questions about humanitarian shipments to Ukraine. 

Where are most of the shipments coming from?

Humanitarian aid is coming from all over the world, but Samulak said the largest cargo flow is coming from the United States and the U.K. 

“Cooperating with Seko logistics, we handle most of the cargo coming from the U.S.,” Samulak said. He told me about an airfreight charter that PFC recently completed, which was an airplane loaded with 122 pallets (35 tons). The airfreight flew out of Chicago.

What about partnerships with nonprofit organizations?

“We support Airlink, which is an amazing nonprofit that works with the airlines, to find available capacity,” Bourke said. “The airlines then donate to Airlink and then subsequently to the charities that are donating humanitarian aid and relief.” 

Airlink provides aid during crises around the world, whether it is an earthquake in Haiti or a volcano eruption in Tonga. Bourke said the airfreight shipment to Ukraine was a massive operation. It involved moving goods from a warehouse in Denver to Chicago, then flying to Europe via Liege, Belgium, and then on to Warsaw, Poland. This was a chartered aircraft. Commercial airlines that have been the most active in humanitarian shipments to Ukraine are United Airlines and Virgin Atlantic. 

What is the cost of a charter?

“I think most of the companies know that this is for humanitarian aid so you don’t see the market rate,” Bourke said. “I don’t know what the final cost was, but we were getting quotes that were anywhere between $250,000 and $400,000.” So it depends on the type of airplane and how many pallets it is able to accommodate. Bourke said PFC has been doing an amazing job handling these humanitarian shipments, regardless of where they are shipped from.

 

Source: American Shipper by Paul-Bernard Jaroslawski

June 13 2022