Hi everyone,

As Fish can be frozen and carried by ship during weeks, I was wondering what type of Fish is carried by Air Cargo ?

Also, what sort of containers are used to carry Fish on a cargo flight ?

Is there any issue regarding the remaining smell of Fish in the cargo holds ?

Many thanks for your feedbacks.

I don't think there's a limitation on the type of fish, all depends on the shipper. But anything from lobsters to tuna to salmon is shipped and shipped in the your normal configured containers that fit in the belly.

You might find a little fish smell on the exterior of the fish container. A little loading slop over the side, perhaps. If you're smelling fish within the first-level container, the container is not properly sealed.

Enough people want fresh, not frozen, and will pay for it, making a market for fish as air cargo.

Any seafood that are transported for long distance would be shipped by air freight. It takes 2 months to get to East Asia from Europe by ship. I don't think any consumer want their fresh Norwegian salmon to be 2-months old when it arrives. Lobsters from Nova Scotia, Salmon from South America or Norway, Tuna from South Pacific, King Crab from Alaska, Arctic Char from Iceland, etc., all fly as air cargo. Besides seafood, fresh vegetables and flowers are big business for air cargo too.

This news article talks about how the specialized Tuna container is re-designed to transport COVID vaccines. Apparently Tuna needs to be frozen at -60C (vaccine is -70C), which is a lot colder than a normal household or commercial freezer (which is -18C). You can see how Tuna is transported by air from this article.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/12/busi ... index.html

When I worked Air Cargo for Piedmont/US Air and we in TPA we would ship LD8s of shark meat to LGW everyday and we’d get clams, mussel and other shellfish shipped in everyday from BOS. And we would ship out live tropical fish out everyday.

Fish needs to be packed in two layers of plastic, with a polystyrene overpack to prevent leakage. There is an IATA standard for it. NOthing to worry about, its properly regulated.
Obviously there are differences between, frozen fish, fresh fish/ lobsters for consumption or even live tropical fish, all perfectly suitable for cargo via air.
All regulated and controlled. There is nothing fishy here

I used to unload 5000 lbs. of live lobster off the morning flight from Boston. They were shipped in double-wall cardboard boxes with some sort of sealed plastic bladder inside. This was on DC-9 / MD-80

MIflyer12 wrote:

You might find a little fish smell on the exterior of the fish container. A little loading slop over the side, perhaps. If you're smelling fish within the first-level container, the container is not properly sealed.

Enough people want fresh, not frozen, and will pay for it, making a market for fish as air cargo.

Worst stench I can remember was opening an LD-3 filled with langostines (crayfish/tiny lobsters). There was something "fishy" about that shipment

This is a great thread! I really enjoy reading our members' fish anecdotes!

Loadmaster on a 747-400.

Did a trip over the summer that took some type of fish from Los Angeles to China. We came damn near close to the dry ice limit on the main deck and hit the limit in both bellies. From what I could tell it was boxes built on a pallet but each box had dry ice.

I’m currently in Memphis now helping with FedEx peak and we take live fish in the bulk almost daily. It’s exactly what you think, a box with a plastic bag of fish inside.

Live crabs are my favorite, especially when they break free and scurry about in the cargo bin. Fun times!

ER757 wrote:

MIflyer12 wrote:

You might find a little fish smell on the exterior of the fish container. A little loading slop over the side, perhaps. If you're smelling fish within the first-level container, the container is not properly sealed.

Enough people want fresh, not frozen, and will pay for it, making a market for fish as air cargo.

Worst stench I can remember was opening an LD-3 filled with langostines (crayfish/tiny lobsters). There was something "fishy" about that shipment

''Fishy'' indeed.

I'll take my lobsters from Maine, thanks! (I know there's more Homarus Americanus exported from Nova Scotia than from Maine.)

If you want to carry fish, you must put them on a 757! The ultimate A.Net fish carrier

Then there is the annual copper river salmon run in Alaska.

https://blog.alaskaair.com/coronavirus/ ... lmon-2020/

AS even has the salmon 3 salmon

https://www.alaskaair.com/content/trave ... 38-salmon2

Imagine carding about fresh Norwegian farmed salmon.

Live eels are regularly transported to Japan & China.

I think this video is super interesting. It covers the process of shipping fish from Senegal to Paris via Air France cargo: https://youtu.be/0-xw5XU0PFo

A380MSN004 wrote:

Hi everyone,

As Fish can be frozen and carried by ship during weeks, I was wondering what type of Fish is carried by Air Cargo ?

Also, what sort of containers are used to carry Fish on a cargo flight ?

Is there any issue regarding the remaining smell of Fish in the cargo holds ?

Many thanks for your feedbacks.

I used to work for a cargo airline, we were shipping over a hundred tons of Salmon out of Norway weekly, and lobsters out of Canada.

The fish was always fresh, never frozen, it was packed in polystyrene rectangular boxes, with the fish inside + ice, thereafter the boxes are stacked on a ULD for air transport. This polystyrene box, plus the environment in which the cargo was stored and transported (over 0 and up to 8 degrees celsius) kept everything fresh inside for a few days.

Fish cargo is a well oiled business and if everything runs smooth, the fish stays fresh thus it almost never smells plus the polystyrene boxes are very good insulators to begin so almost no air escapes from inside, of course mishaps happen.

When it comes to further process of fish cargo it really depends on the legislation of the country. The country i was working in, any type of fresh fish, had to be sold to a processing client (restaurant kitchens, food factories, catering services etc..) within 7 days from the moment the fish was caught in sea, meaning, shipping the fish to shore, local processing and preparation for air transport, trucking to airport, flying, customs at destination, delivery to client in less than 7 days. Some other countries i know, have 10 or 14 days limit.

Viper911

At BA Cargo London Heathrow we transport over a hundred tonnes of fish per week, mainly to Boston and Vancouver. Its mainly Salmon and Trout from Scandinavia, flown to Stansted, then roaded to Heathrow, then flown to the US and Canada in the cargo holds of the passenger aircraft. We also get lots of Sea Bass from Athens and Larnaca which mainly goes to Miami, Newark and Toronto, and sometimes Dallas. All shipped on standard PAG/PMC pallets or in AKE's.
Also 4 to 5 complete Tuna carcasses from Barcelona per week for London restaurants and sometimes for the US too.

Fresh fish is a big and lucrative air cargo business. I think the Alaska salmon market is particularly interesting. During the salmon harvest in the summer, a lot of old aircraft that are large but that can land on gravel air strips haul salmon from outlying airports back to FAI and ANC where it can be loaded onto jumbos for onward distribution. Grace Air ran a C-97 up there in the 1990s, and I think Hawkins and Powers had at least one of its C-119s up there, and the salmon haul was the core of that business. I am sure that Salmon gets on the Everts DC-6s and C-46s that are still operating today.

raylee67 wrote:

Any seafood that are transported for long distance would be shipped by air freight. It takes 2 months to get to East Asia from Europe by ship. I don't think any consumer want their fresh Norwegian salmon to be 2-months old when it arrives. Lobsters from Nova Scotia, Salmon from South America or Norway, Tuna from South Pacific, King Crab from Alaska, Arctic Char from Iceland, etc., all fly as air cargo. Besides seafood, fresh vegetables and flowers are big business for air cargo too.

This news article talks about how the specialized Tuna container is re-designed to transport COVID vaccines. Apparently Tuna needs to be frozen at -60C (vaccine is -70C), which is a lot colder than a normal household or commercial freezer (which is -18C). You can see how Tuna is transported by air from this article.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/12/busi ... index.html

Not all seafood transported on long distance would be shipped by air freight.
I can speak only for Germany because I know some numbers. Frankfurt is the biggest airport for seafood by air freight here with ~ 26000 ton a year. I know a ship from Nothern Germany that catches about 40000 ton a year and transport their catch by ship to the harbour from the Southern Atlantic. This company owns 6 of this crawlers which are real factories on water ! Also Salmon from Russia find it`s way vs. China by ship to us and the same from Alaska.
Where is the different about Tuna ( deep frozen ) how long it get`s transported or more so for which price?
From the link you provided I can see a real good action for the folks on this planet to transport pax and not only fish in the near future !

In case anyone is wondering, live fish are also carried by air destined to pet stores.

concordeforever wrote:

At BA Cargo London Heathrow we transport over a hundred tonnes of fish per week, mainly to Boston and Vancouver. Its mainly Salmon and Trout from Scandinavia, flown to Stansted, then roaded to Heathrow, then flown to the US and Canada in the cargo holds of the passenger aircraft. We also get lots of Sea Bass from Athens and Larnaca which mainly goes to Miami, Newark and Toronto, and sometimes Dallas. All shipped on standard PAG/PMC pallets or in AKE's.
Also 4 to 5 complete Tuna carcasses from Barcelona per week for London restaurants and sometimes for the US too.

Just curious any particular reason why its mainly BOS and YVR? Is that because its a distribution center that are then flown onwards to other points in Canada/USA?

Are fish also carried on narrowbody A320 jets for fish caught elsewhere in Europe before being loaded onto a 777/787/350 at LHR?? Are they bulk loaded?

This thread is very fishy.

LimaFoxTango wrote:

In case anyone is wondering, live fish are also carried by air destined to pet stores.

We also carry live fish for human consumption.

How about shrimps? There was a regular flight GG4854/53 on former N908AR (later on N903AR when the first one overshoot a runway at Halifax and was written off) that was carrying atlantic shrimps from Canada to China. Route was CSX-ANC-ORD-YHZ-ANC-CSX, it ended in spring this year but only YHZ-ANC-CSX leg was loaded with shrimps.

VV wrote:

This thread is very fishy.

You almost got me hook, line and sinker with that pun.

But on a scale of fish jokes, it didn’t make me crabby at all. It was almost eely good.

All done now. Fin.

I eat fresh fish carried to the market without cooling since many years and never had a food poisoning.
Before fish spoils it starts getting a slightly sour taste.

Changed structure isn't such a good sign. It means the fish was long on ice, probably the offer of the day exceeded usual demand. It doesn't mean it's about to spoil. But the fresh taste isn't there.

But any slight sour or funny taste: don't eat.

andrew1996 wrote:

concordeforever wrote:

At BA Cargo London Heathrow we transport over a hundred tonnes of fish per week, mainly to Boston and Vancouver. Its mainly Salmon and Trout from Scandinavia, flown to Stansted, then roaded to Heathrow, then flown to the US and Canada in the cargo holds of the passenger aircraft. We also get lots of Sea Bass from Athens and Larnaca which mainly goes to Miami, Newark and Toronto, and sometimes Dallas. All shipped on standard PAG/PMC pallets or in AKE's.
Also 4 to 5 complete Tuna carcasses from Barcelona per week for London restaurants and sometimes for the US too.

Just curious any particular reason why its mainly BOS and YVR? Is that because its a distribution center that are then flown onwards to other points in Canada/USA?

Probably because Vancouver and Boston are major export hub for seafood from North America so they already have the cold storage facilities. It's more efficient to utilize the existing facilities to handle both import and export (and transshipment). Imagine if the seafood is flown to say Dallas, any cold storage and processing facilities specialized for seafood (if any) would only be used for imports. There is just no fish coming out from Dallas for export.

*Icelandair entered the chat*

Here is a default image of such a transport, where you can clearly see these white Styrofoam boxes used for transport of frozen stuff being unloaded:



Stereotypical similarities are pure coincidence and not intended. Claiming otherwise is enemy propaganda

I don't know enough about the containers to say, but I live in Halifax (YHZ) and Korean Air Cargo flies here regularly to pick up lobster, I used to see them all the time either departing or arriving (pretty sure they still fly here during covid)

andrew1996 wrote:

concordeforever wrote:

At BA Cargo London Heathrow we transport over a hundred tonnes of fish per week, mainly to Boston and Vancouver. Its mainly Salmon and Trout from Scandinavia, flown to Stansted, then roaded to Heathrow, then flown to the US and Canada in the cargo holds of the passenger aircraft. We also get lots of Sea Bass from Athens and Larnaca which mainly goes to Miami, Newark and Toronto, and sometimes Dallas. All shipped on standard PAG/PMC pallets or in AKE's.
Also 4 to 5 complete Tuna carcasses from Barcelona per week for London restaurants and sometimes for the US too.

Just curious any particular reason why its mainly BOS and YVR? Is that because its a distribution center that are then flown onwards to other points in Canada/USA?

Are fish also carried on narrowbody A320 jets for fish caught elsewhere in Europe before being loaded onto a 777/787/350 at LHR?? Are they bulk loaded?

I forgot San Francisco for the Scandinavian Salmon and Trout, and Los Angeles for the Greek and Cypriot Sea Bass and Bream.

Yes, I think it gets distributed around from these main entry points.

The Athens, Larnaca, and Barcelona flights currently all use A320s to Heathrow, so the fish comes in AKHs. We then have to unload it and rebuild it in to AKEs or on to pallets for the widebody flights to the US and Canada. The Scandinavian fish comes in on DHL A300 freighters so stays intact. These flights come in to Luton and East Midlands, and not Stansted that I mentioned earlier, then roaded down to Heathrow. Occasionally the fish boxes are bulk loaded, but only around 2-3% per week I would say.

The demand for tuna in the London restaurants has collapsed due to most being closed because of the pandemic, but the US exports for the others are booming.

Air cargo and fresh fish is very big from Norway, Oslo probably see more 747 freighters than most other airports worldwide. Qatar alone got 3 777s a week from Narvik.

https://www.logupdateafrica.com/qatar-a ... 4-aviation

gabik001 wrote:

How about shrimps? There was a regular flight GG4854/53 on former N908AR (later on N903AR when the first one overshoot a runway at Halifax and was written off) that was carrying atlantic shrimps from Canada to China. Route was CSX-ANC-ORD-YHZ-ANC-CSX, it ended in spring this year but only YHZ-ANC-CSX leg was loaded with shrimps.

At BA we used to transport a lot of Languistines from Aberdeen and Glasgow, where they are farmed, but that seems to have dried up.

Also lots of crabs went to China, but I think we lost that contract!

Winky's Fish



Full story on this one @ http://www.aussieairliners.org/l-1049/n ... 4247k.html

thepinkmachine wrote:

If you want to carry fish, you must put them on a 757! The ultimate A.Net fish carrier

Preferrably with Icelandair titles on it!

concordeforever wrote:

gabik001 wrote:

How about shrimps? There was a regular flight GG4854/53 on former N908AR (later on N903AR when the first one overshoot a runway at Halifax and was written off) that was carrying atlantic shrimps from Canada to China. Route was CSX-ANC-ORD-YHZ-ANC-CSX, it ended in spring this year but only YHZ-ANC-CSX leg was loaded with shrimps.

At BA we used to transport a lot of Languistines from Aberdeen and Glasgow, where they are farmed, but that seems to have dried up.

Also lots of crabs went to China, but I think we lost that contract!

Well, the farm dried up, ergo, no langoustines

I know that all around the Scottish waters, fishermen are very actively hunting for lobsters, langoustine, and the like. Whatever they catch is treated as very valuable and "urgent". I imagine that there will be much of that catch flying into Aberdeen and Glasgow on Loganair services to be consolidated for onward travel to London (and beyond)

concordeforever wrote:

gabik001 wrote:

How about shrimps? There was a regular flight GG4854/53 on former N908AR (later on N903AR when the first one overshoot a runway at Halifax and was written off) that was carrying atlantic shrimps from Canada to China. Route was CSX-ANC-ORD-YHZ-ANC-CSX, it ended in spring this year but only YHZ-ANC-CSX leg was loaded with shrimps.

At BA we used to transport a lot of Languistines from Aberdeen and Glasgow, where they are farmed, but that seems to have dried up.

Also lots of crabs went to China, but I think we lost that contract!

Hairy Crab, a delight for the Chinese!!

Live Lobsters and Coral Groupers are regularly shipped to Hong Kong by air from Australia with no issues whatsoever, mostly in foam boxes wrapped on the outside. We also get long legged crab from Alaska and Salmon from both Norway and Canada, both fresh, with no problems at all.

Kev

Icelandair is probably the very best example. I was there several years ago waiting for a connecting flight. A lorry pulled up alongside a 757 then a forklift truck removed a pallet of white boxes containing frozen fish took them to the forward conveyor belt before returning to the lorry and taking a pallet to the rear conveyor belt then back to the lorry and the front conveyor until the lorry was empty. As each new pallet arrived at the conveyor belts the previous pallet was emptied. It was poetry in motion watching this perfectly timed operation. The same operation took place as each new 757 arrived. It was pretty clear that Icelandairs entire operation was about moving fish not passengers!

thepinkmachine wrote:

If you want to carry fish, you must put them on a 757! The ultimate A.Net fish carrier

Can't believe it took until Reply 13!! Too funny.

Happy Holidays all!

It was assumed that SkyLease Cargo was flying fish on a contract from Halifax to Mainland China (remember their 747 overrun in YHZ). Now 5Y must have picked up the contract or is flying for a similar client on their JFK-CSX route.

diesel1 wrote:

Winky's Fish

Full story on this one @ http://www.aussieairliners.org/l-1049/n ... 4247k.html

Weren’t there some 727s that were dedicated fish haulers in Micronesia?

2nd2none wrote:

Air cargo and fresh fish is very big from Norway, Oslo probably see more 747 freighters than most other airports worldwide. Qatar alone got 3 777s a week from Narvik.

https://www.logupdateafrica.com/qatar-a ... 4-aviation

Indeed, BA is adding a daily 787 cargo only flight between LHR and OSL from 7th Jan.

270.000 tons of Seafood is flown out of Norway annually (and growing) North Atlantic Salmon is the single largest airfreight commodity in Europe when it comes to tons flown.

There are seafood as mentioned flown from Alaska, Chile, Canada, Iceland, and other countries.
However none of them comes even close to the volumes lifted as air cargo out of Norway.

Oslo Airport alone sees over 50 seafood flights a week to the world market.

Norway is the worlds largest seafood exporters and more air cargo capacity is needed in the future to handle the expected growth.

We transport tons and tons of live crayfish, eels, sea urchin and abalone, as well as fresh salmon., On top of that there are a number of marine species such as snapper,grouper, orange roughy, hoki and also fish lie Tuna out of the South Pacific nations.

LucaDiMontanari wrote:

Here is a default image of such a transport, where you can clearly see these white Styrofoam boxes used for transport of frozen stuff being unloaded:

Fresh fish, never frozen.

goosebayguy wrote:

Icelandair is probably the very best example. I was there several years ago waiting for a connecting flight. A lorry pulled up alongside a 757 then a forklift truck removed a pallet of white boxes containing frozen fish took them to the forward conveyor belt before returning to the lorry and taking a pallet to the rear conveyor belt then back to the lorry and the front conveyor until the lorry was empty. As each new pallet arrived at the conveyor belts the previous pallet was emptied. It was poetry in motion watching this perfectly timed operation. The same operation took place as each new 757 arrived. It was pretty clear that Icelandairs entire operation was about moving fish not passengers!

Fresh fish. Usually less than 24 hours out of the sea.

Ferryflight wrote:

270.000 tons of Seafood is flown out of Norway annually (and growing) North Atlantic Salmon is the single largest airfreight commodity in Europe when it comes to tons flown.

There are seafood as mentioned flown from Alaska, Chile, Canada, Iceland, and other countries.
However none of them comes even close to the volumes lifted as air cargo out of Norway.

Oslo Airport alone sees over 50 seafood flights a week to the world market.

Norway is the worlds largest seafood exporters and more air cargo capacity is needed in the future to handle the expected growth.

To be honest the so called Noth Atlantic Salmon in reality is out of farms and not natrurally out of the North Atlantik , isn`t it ?
If you look at the complete picture there are much more of concerns about it ! Think about China`s claim that COVID could com from there ???

oldJoe wrote:

Ferryflight wrote:

270.000 tons of Seafood is flown out of Norway annually (and growing) North Atlantic Salmon is the single largest airfreight commodity in Europe when it comes to tons flown.

There are seafood as mentioned flown from Alaska, Chile, Canada, Iceland, and other countries.
However none of them comes even close to the volumes lifted as air cargo out of Norway.

Oslo Airport alone sees over 50 seafood flights a week to the world market.

Norway is the worlds largest seafood exporters and more air cargo capacity is needed in the future to handle the expected growth.

To be honest the so called Noth Atlantic Salmon in reality is out of farms and not natrurally out of the North Atlantik , isn`t it ?
If you look at the complete picture there are much more of concerns about it ! Think about China`s claim that COVID could com from there ???

"Atlantic salmon" is a species of the genus salmo (trout and salmons); can be farm-raised or wild-caught.