Mother’s Day floral sales exceed expectations in the US. However, in Colombia, they did not seem to have felt this boom. Grower Diana Cristina Henao Osorio of Uniflor explains that their flowers could not be shipped as there was not enough air freight capacity.
"The Colombian flower market is receiving this situation with great enthusiasm, since after all the losses obtained during Easter and the beginning of the Mother's Day season, this is a very good time for companies to find economic relief and to ensure their stability in the future, however for Colombia it wasn't such a good holiday, she says.
According to Henao Osorio, the main problem is that the Mother's Day boost for flowers is not recognized by the airlines. "The airlines that transport the flower from Colombia to the United States, are not seeing this boom in the market (or not listening to us) and our flowers therefore couldn't be shipped. We have a lot of orders from American clients who need the flowers to meet their needs, we have the flowers available, but we do not know how to send it to them."
"The airlines, mainly Avianca, which is the one that moves the largest volume of flowers from the Rionegro airport, has its capacity at 50% of usually handled and it makes that the market couldn't be higher than now. There are not many options to send the flowers, because the other airlines have had a lower percentage of the flower market and maintain their capacity at their maximum, so we finally end up losing sales and discarding the flower crop."
But what about Maritime shipments? "Maritime shipments were increasing considerably, but with the current uncertainty in the market, customer orders are last-minute, which does not allow shipping the cargo by ship, since this logistics needs to have orders with at least 2 weeks of advance."
"We call mainly to Avianca, to work a little more thinking about their customers and our customers, to be patient with us, because we have all the will but it is still uncertain what we can really send them", she concludes.
For more information:
Uniflor
Diana Cristina Henao Osorio
Gerente General
PBX:57 (4) 448-1130 ext. 145
Vía Aeropuerto Km. 5.0
Rionegro, Antioquia, Colombia.
https://www.uniflor.com.co/