Kelowna Flightcraft (Kelowna) is set to rebrand its cargo operation as KF Cargo (FK, Kelowna) as it moves to revitalize its operations following the loss of its Canada Post and Purolator contracts to rival, Cargojet Airways (W8, Hamilton, ON).
The Canadian freight specialist is to move its one of its two bases of operations from Hamilton, ON airport to Toronto Pearson in line with plans to develop the latter into an intercontinental hub for traffic to Europe and Asia.
"We've lost our single source of revenue and cargo, and now the majority of the customers we want to fly for are based in Toronto," Flightcraft spokesman Grant Stevens told Canada's Spectator magazine. "Now we're trying to break into a new market, so we have to be in Toronto."
According to the CargoFowarder site, KF Cargo's first flight to Europe is set to be to Brussels National with a tentative 4x weekly service to begin on May 17. Service is on-board one of the carrier's four DC-10-30(F)s. Other routes include a 6x weekly Toronto to Vancouver International and Anchorage Ted Stevens, Alaska, service slated to begin in mid-July. The routes will be supported by two domestic routes — a 2x daily Toronto to Halifax flight, and a 2x daily (weekdays only) Vancouver-Calgary service.
The carrier said in an internal memo that the new business plan, while catering to no single customer with no guarantee of volumes, and no guaranteed revenue, will give it the opportunity to demonstrate its 'innovativeness, reliability and dependability to a wide variety of potential customers.'
“There is a lot of cargo from Europe, Africa and South America destined for Canada, but we are concentrating on the EU market through Brussels right now. The rest we’ll worry about later,” Bryan Akerstream, Director of Business Development, said.
