By late August 2026, belly cargo on Uganda Airlines' four-weekly Entebbe–London Gatwick service had fallen to roughly 15 tonnes per flight as passenger loads climbed, according to Eric Potgieter of the Entebbe-based exporter Mashamba FFP (U) Ltd.

What capacity does the route offer?

Uganda Airlines launched the service on 18 May 2025 at four flights a week, becoming the only direct passenger route Mashamba treats as its working option to the UK and Europe. Mashamba has air-freighted more than 23 million kilos of Ugandan produce since 2001 and now moves most of its volume on the national carrier.

A weekly freighter serves Liège carrying mainly flowers and fish for Belgium and the Netherlands, with some vegetables. From Mashamba's side that leaves the national carrier's belly as the working option for green goods.

What routes has Uganda lost?

KLM suspended its Entebbe service in June 2026 following Ebola-related travel restrictions, removing a second direct European belly option. Gulf carriers absorb most rerouted volume. Emirates SkyCargo alone claims to have moved 91,930 tonnes of African perishables in 2024, with Ugandan bananas among them.

Why are bookings so volatile?

Mashamba books most of its space through Uganda Airlines' general sales agent on about a week's notice. Potgieter describes the system bluntly: "Nothing is fixed. It is always dynamic, and there is no standing allocation to fall back on; every week we win our space again." Buyers place orders a week ahead; shippers confirm once the booking clears.

What did the A330 withdrawal change?

In early 2026 Uganda Airlines withdrew its A330 fleet and kept Gatwick flying with a leased Boeing 787. For travellers the substitution read as a footnote. For shippers it rewrote the cargo arithmetic on each rotation. Potgieter calls the period "quite hard, but manageable."

How does the ground operation compare?

Mashamba aims to deliver consignments six to eight hours before departure. The constraint at Entebbe sits in infrastructure: limited truck-offloading bays and limited capacity for Ministry of Agriculture inspections.

At the destination end perishables made up 22% of Brussels Airport's cargo volume in 2023, more than 154,000 tonnes. Swissport opened a dedicated perishables warehouse at Kilimanjaro in August 2026, sized for 13,000 tonnes a year.

What limits Ugandan volumes?

Potgieter argues that production, not transport, binds the sector. Few commercial-scale vegetable farms operate in Uganda, and the most organised new crop, Hass avocado, still has to prove its economics.

Kenya holds a 20-year development advantage, built on development finance and a mature flower industry; Uganda's vegetable exports remain the work of small companies sourcing from smallholders.

Air-cargo pricing from Entebbe tracks Nairobi closely, Potgieter writes, but jet fuel still arrives by truck from Mombasa and the volumes available to fly differ.

What comes next?

IATA put African airlines' cargo demand up 6% in 2025, with capacity up 7.8%, against global growth of 3.4% and 3.7%. The aggregates mask the route-by-route, aircraft-by-aircraft, season-by-season imbalance that exporters feel directly.

A planned rail link between Kampala and Mombasa could change the cost stack at Entebbe. Production scaling will determine whether Uganda's horticulture sector grows with regional capacity.