This has been a week for flowers, with Valentine’s Day Wednesday, and if you’ve been wondering how so many flowers were so available for the traditional day, here’s part of the answer: American Airlines says it flew 1.2 million pounds of flowers to U.S. destinations in the buildup for the day.
Not that they were alone in the airlift, but they did put out a press release about it. Swissport, a major cargo handler, moved 9,000 tonnes of African roses during the pre-holiday period.
The flowers were moved mainly from Europe and Latin America during the first ten days of the month. The airline says—no surprise—that Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport was the top origin point for flowers, with tulips the most common. What’s surprising, though, is that American shipped the flowers by truck to London Heathrow, the hub for its air cargo and widebody operations. Top U.S. destinations included Boston, New York, Dallas/Fort Worth, Miam, Los Angeles and Chicago.
Roses were 90% of the flowers flown to the U.S. from Latin America, where Bogota and Medillin in Colombia and Quito in Peru were the main sources. American was also involved in shipping some of those roses on to London, Madrid and San Juan, Puerto Rico.
