Red Star Express ventures into cargo with GSA services

Chukwuemeke Iwelunmo

One of Nigeria’s leading logistics and cargo generating company, Red Star Express Plc, has ventured into the cargo General Sales Agent services (GSA) as part of its expansion drive.

This was announced at an exclusive meeting with some of the company’s top management .

The cargo service introduced by the company, will help connect passenger baggages and packages from one airport location to another at a faster rate.

According to the Group Managing Director, Red Star Express Plc, Dr. Olusola Obabori, the company is focused on growth.

“We are a company focused on growth, and part of our growth platform for the financial year is to work to a large extent with airlines on cargo consolidation both locally and internationally.

With this in mind, we commenced a partnership with Aero Contractors, and we have ongoing discussions with other airlines which of course will start soon in the course of the business”

“We are aggressive in terms of expansion, and this is the reason we started operations in some West Africa offices few months ago, some of which are Niger Republic, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic.

If we have to expand, we have to be able to connect shipments from Lagos to these countries”

According to him international business was principally done on the FedEx platform with Red Star Freight that does major cargo movement from Nigeria to the rest of the world and bring in cargo into Nigeria.

“The GSA is a component of our expansion plan which we recently introduced. This will bring lots of help in the industry.

We have opened international operations which are to show you that beyond the domestic market, there’s a lot we can do for Nigeria in the West Africa sub-region”

Also speaking, the Chief Operating Officer, Red Star Freight, Mr. Mudiaga Okumagba ssid. “Red Star Express is an indigenous Nigerian company owned by Nigeria and run by Nigerians.

We are a licensee of FedEx, an American company. This enables us ship anything through the FedEx network.”

Okumagba explained that they got the GSA license about two years ago, but just started operating with it adding that they partnered with Aero Contractors and hoped to work with other domestic airlines in a couple of months.

“Also for the International routes, we are hoping that before the end of the year, we will have something to do with Lufthansa Airline.

Partnering with airlines, gives us an opportunity of dropping in our cargoes in spaces not occupied by passenger’s luggage. Red Star Freight also has Independent Network partners –RFLM and WCA”

These networks according to him allowed shipments to any part of the world either by air or by sea stressing that they started as an air express delivery company that has been dealing more with airlines.

He explained that Red Star has a vision of not just handling cargoes on domestic and International routes but looking forward to flying its own aircraft.

“This is the opportunity that lies in the GSA business. Going into this will help us go deeper into the Aviation business because you cannot do GSA business if you are not operating in the Aviation territory.

We have been moving our shipments through vendors to the airlines. We are looking forward to breaking the barrier and building a relationship directly with airlines”.

Okumagba reiterated that Red Star had about 166 offices nationwide prides in the company’s capability to handle cargoes and parcels professionally, both in the number of staff and offices it has nationwide.