By Chinelo Obogo
Merchant Express Cargo Airlines Limited, has been chosen as the General Sales and Service Agent (GSSA) to Turkish Cargo in Nigeria and says it is targeting not less than 70 per cent of the cargo market share in the country.
Speaking on the new collaboration, the Executive Director of Merchant Express, Captain Samuel Caulcrick said that with the new development, the company will be responsible for Turkish Cargo operations in Nigeria.
“Turkey has one of the largest networks because of their position globally just like Nigeria. When you want to move goods to where our customers want to be, Instabul in Turkey is the geocentre. Everybody is talking about export and as an agrarian society, we want to start with agricultural products. Our agric exports have been a subject of rejection at destinations.
Nigeria used to be a top export of rice in the 50s before oil came and everything went down. So we are coming back. We were able to recognise why our exports and we will fix that. Everyone want to be able to get back to what it was and to correct the shortcomings.”
A senior management staff of Merchant Express, Mr. Kingsley Nwokeoma said that the company being a GSSA to Turkish Cargo means that what they do for Turkish now is representing the airline on exports.
Nwokeoma who is also the President of the Association of Foreign Airlines and Representatives in Nigeria (AFARN), however, emphasised that “All their exports out of Nigeria including that from Lagos, Abuja, Port Hacourt, Kano will be handled by us. Merchant Express has been appointed to represent them. Unlike before, when you now go to Turkish Cargo for any enquiries, the airline will always direct you to come to us whenever you need anything from them.”
According to him, Merchant Express has in the past handled airlines such as Etihad, Cargolux, Cargo Italia, Saudi Arabia airline and Ghana Cargo but that their partnership with Turkish Cargo does not invalidate earlier collaboration with other airlines.
“We will be involved in the quality control aspect because our duty is to ensure that they succeed. For example, we will involve in the packaging of their products so that it will be accepted globally. We have discovered that some of the items from Nigeria do not make the market shelf. The best grade are the ones found at the shelf. The A grade are the ones that enable them to realize their money.
“Turkish has six cargo flight coming in weekly. Merchant Express will do five flights weekly. We are ready and we Turkish has the spread. I am sure this partnership will make both parties happy. What is important is the ease of doing business. There is need to collapse all those multiple inspection points manned by the government agencies to one single point. We don’t need to know who owns anything. They should not be congestion and the airport supposed to be quiet. You drop your load and the agents take it up from there,” he said.