WHAT A GENERAL SALES AND SERVICE AGENT ACTUALLY DOES

Globe Air Cargo Türkiye has acted as EGYPTAIR’s contracted general sales and service agent in Türkiye since 2016. Over that first decade the Egyptian national carrier has grown from a purely belly cargo connection into one of the top ten carriers serving Türkiye, and now operates two Airbus A330 freighters per week alongside its scheduled passenger services. EGYPTAIR currently offers 105 tonnes of freight capacity each week on scheduled flights out of Istanbul to Cairo, carrying a mix spanning pharmaceuticals, aerospace, grains, pulses, seeds and general cargo.

The GSSA model is worth explaining because its economics are not obvious. An airline entering a foreign cargo market faces a choice between establishing its own sales, operations and customer service presence (a fixed cost incurred before any revenue) or contracting an agent that already holds those relationships and that infrastructure. The agent sells the airline’s capacity as though it were its own, handles the operational interface, and is remunerated on what it moves. For a carrier testing whether a market will support dedicated freighter capacity, it converts a fixed cost into a variable one, and the decision to add freighters becomes a response to demonstrated demand rather than a bet on it.

Ersun Guven, Managing Director of Globe Air Cargo Türkiye, said the company had been EGYPTAIR’s contracted GSSA in Türkiye since 2016 and operated a dedicated team to ensure fast and smooth communication at all times. He identified a strong strategic connection between the two national markets, noting that many Turkish manufacturers are located in Egypt, which produces high load factors in both directions with demand continuing to grow. Globe Air Cargo Türkiye handles tender management, operational support, import sales, charters and complete commercial operations for EGYPTAIR within the country, and there is an option to increase the freighter programme to four weekly services should the market expand further.

FRANCE: THREE CONSECUTIVE RECORD YEARS

Globe Air Cargo France has represented EGYPTAIR since 2010, marketing the capacity of a daily Boeing 787 Dreamliner from Paris-Charles de Gaulle to Cairo and two to three weekly Airbus A300 freighters to Cairo out of Ostende. The French operation’s emphasis is different from the Turkish one: it positions Cairo as a regional hub for transhipment onward to Saudi Arabia, Dubai and Johannesburg – treating the Egyptian capital as a connecting point rather than a destination. The strategy has produced consecutive record years, with tonnage growing from more than 2,500 tonnes in 2024 to 2,670 tonnes in 2025 and a similar trajectory forecast for 2026.

Franck Tordjman, Managing Director of Globe Air Cargo France, identified three requirements for sustainable growth: establishing long-term customer relationships through reliability and mutual understanding; intelligent product positioning around categories such as pharmaceuticals, perishables and live animals; and encouraging online bookings, which the company has pushed particularly for shipments below 300 kilograms. He said the more that is booked online, the faster and more efficiently flights can be optimised using in-house digital tools – a point that reflects where the handling cost sits in small-consignment cargo, since a 200-kilogram shipment booked by telephone consumes similar staff time to one many times its size.

Jean Ceccaldi, Chief Executive Officer of ECS Group, said EGYPTAIR’s success in Türkiye and France was testament to what a professional GSSA can deliver, and that the combination of local market expertise, digital solutions and a partnership matured over time would result in positive growth. ECS Group represents hundreds of companies across 59 countries through 181 offices with more than 1,700 employees.