The launch of FreshLine, a cargo airline specialising in flying fruit and vegetables and other perishable goods from the Middle East and Africa into Frankfurt Hahn Airport, has been put back several months.

FreshLine was eyeing a spring 2006 launch but this has had to be rescheduled to the early autumn.

Rescheduling is largely related to difficulties in finalising the arrangements for our corporate facilities at our base Frankfurt-Hahn and the project has not been called into question whatsoever ,” FreshLine’s co-director Michael Hoevel explains.

When FreshLine enters service later this year, in time for the peak season for fruit and vegetables into Europe, it hopes to be running a longer range aircraft than initially planned opening up new and more remote sources of supply from Hahn. In addition to Cairo and Amman which we were already pencilled in, the aircraft could bring in fresh produce from origins such as Aden, Nairobi and Entebbe.