Even carrier pigeons sometimes take the airplane on a trip across Europe. At least in this case, where G.K. Airfreight ´s team had quite a special animal transport to take care of. 24 carrier pigeons from Germany were to be transported to Thessaloniki, being the second biggest city in Greece with roughly over three hundred thousand residents. An average shipment on the whole, much like any other, but the reason for the long trip is quite unlike the usual animal transport done by any other breeder.

The Backs GmbH has been up keeping good relations to the Greek carrier pigeon breeders in Thessaloniki for quite some time now. The feed labeled “made in Germany” has gained much esteem amongst breeders for being of a particularly high quality. Long years of experience and ever improved fodder compositions have made breeding pigeons quite a successful endeavourer, of which of course, our clients in Greece like to profit.

Now, 24 of these young carrier pigeons that Theodor Backs GmbH has been kind enough to contribute were auctioned off for a good cause. The proceeds of the auction were to be won in support of a school for disabled children with speech and hearing impairment. However, before this could take place, the traveling arrangements needed to be taken care of. The transport boxes the experienced breeder makes use of are well suited for the airfreight of such talented navigators. When cartering such valuable live cargo it is important that the boxes, wherein the animals are brought from A to B, are adequately stable when they are stacked on top of one another. (specialized metal transport boxes are used for pigeons) Over the course of the many pigeon transports that the team at G.K. Airfreight has taken charge of in the past 40 years, the now renowned forwarding agent has proven to be correct in saying that the objective of all plans that the team may orchestrate should always be that the journey of the animals should be kept as short as possible. Once again it was possible that this aim was to be advocated as only five minutes after the plane landed, the recipient of the 24 pigeons was able to pick up the animals from the airport terminal.

Working together with Aegean Airlines, founded in 1999 and now a member of the “Star Alliance”, an international airline coalition, proved to be a reliably functioning cooperation. This time round, the pigeons were able to save their energies on the long flight from Germany to Greece, but soon their “aerial duties” shall be taken on in the Peloponnese. A clear sign for the kids at the Greek school and others, that there are people in other countries that do take an active part in trying to alleviate some of the difficulties in the fate of disabled children.