Etihad’s special sturgeon fish cargo shipment goes swimmingly from Frankfurt to Abu Dhabi.

In an interesting announcement, Etihad, the Abu Dhabi-based airline has revealed that its Crystal Cargo’s latest shipment of precious goods transported live reared sturgeon for the world’s biggest caviar factory, which is being built in Abu Dhabi.

The 22 adult sturgeon fish were flown from Frankfurt Hahn Airport to Abu Dhabi, and then transported to a new 60,000- square-metre farm recently, commissioned for rearing sturgeons and production of caviar in the UAE, the Airline said. It added that Etihad’s clients in the project were the UAE-based Bin Salem Holding and United Food Technologies AG, a German company. Bin Salem and UFT are reportedly working together on the development of the caviar factory.

According to the announcement, each sturgeon was transported in a specially designed container in a temperature- controlled environment, which was set to be constantly between 100 and 150C. At each stage of the process, the pallets were loaded and unloaded within minutes, Etihad claimed, and revealed that the airlines utilised one of its new A330-200 freighter aircraft, which provides temperature- control technology to transport endangered species.

Commenting on the rare feat, Roy Kinnear, Senior Vice President Cargo, Etihad Airways, said: “Etihad is proud of its reputation for carrying precious cargo, and this now includes sturgeon fish which are on the list of global endangered species. The Etihad Crystal Cargo team, working closely with our ground handling colleagues and clients, demonstrated expertise and coordination skills to ensure the fish were shipped safely from Frankfurt to their new home in the UAE.”