Icelandair Cargo begins a weekly scheduled freighter operation from Boston Logan (BOS) to its hub in Keflavík, Iceland (KEF) starting today. Out of Keflavík, the carrier offers freighter services to Liege, Belgium (LGG) and East Midland, UK (EMA) in addition to providing belly capacity on Icelandair passenger network to 26 cities in Scandinavia, UK and mainland Europe. Icelandair Cargo also provides cargo services to Greenland and Faroe Islands through its interline agreement with Air Iceland.

Driving this new service to Boston is increased demand of fresh seafood from Iceland. “We have seen a year on year increase in seafood volumes to the US market every year from 2011. We are now at the point where demand has surpassed our capacity despite our twice a week freighter to JFK and daily passenger flights to Boston and JFK. Seeing that the Boston area is the biggest market for Icelandic seafood it only made sense to add this service to Logan,” says Icelandair Cargo managing director, Gunnar Már Sigurfinnsson.

Adding that “although inbound seafood is driving the new service we are very excited to announce this to the Boston freight forwarding community and being the first to introduce a scheduled European all-cargo freighter service in the market. We decided to set this schedule up until Easter, after which we will have a better feel for the market. Our hope is for a strong support from the local freight forwarders so that we can make this a whole year operation and possibly increase the frequency in the not too distant future.”

Icelandair Cargo will be the only carrier offering a scheduled all-cargo freighter service from Boston Logan to Europe. The flight will be operated with a B757-200.