Astral Aviation Brand Guidelines: A Nairobi Cargo Airline Founded in 2000

A private Kenyan company and a cargo licence.

Astral Aviation is a Kenyan cargo airline based at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi. English Wikipedia says it was established in November 2000 and began operating in January 2001, after receiving its Air Operator Certificate and Air Service Licence from the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority. The company’s own timeline says it was incorporated in Kenya in 2000 as a private company by Sanjeev Gadhia, who still leads it as founder and chief executive.

The airline’s status grew in the years that followed. The company says it was designated a national carrier by Kenya’s Ministry of Transport in 2006 — English Wikipedia dates its designation as a cargo airline to November 2006 — and that it moved to scheduled cargo operations in 2007. Its profile page now calls it Kenya’s designated all-cargo national carrier.

Astral grew through partnerships as much as through its own aircraft. Its timeline lists Boeing 747 freighter wet-lease operations with Atlas Air from 2013, a joint venture with Network Airline Management on a Nairobi–Europe route in 2016, the opening of a hub in Dubai in 2019, and the arrival of the Boeing 767 freighter in 2021. In 2024, it says, it began a partnership with Etihad Cargo and added the Chinese cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Haikou to its network.

English Wikipedia lists former aircraft that include a Boeing 727-200 freighter, Boeing 737-400 freighters, two Boeing 747-400 freighters leased from Atlas Air, Fokker 27 freighters and a Douglas DC-9 convertible. As of August 2025 it listed one Boeing 737-400 freighter, one 767-200 freighter and one converted 767-300ER in service.

From Nairobi to Dubai, Johannesburg and Hong Kong.

Astral describes its network as hubs rather than a single base. Its website names Nairobi as the primary hub, with Dubai, Johannesburg and Hong Kong as further hub cities, Guangzhou as a China hub, and Liège in Belgium as its gateway to Europe. The size of the network varies across its own pages: the home page speaks of “over 35 destinations” in one place and more than 50 in another, and the profile page of 50-plus destinations with traffic rights to more than 50 countries. When Emirates SkyCargo signed a memorandum of understanding with Astral at the Air Cargo Africa event in February 2025, its release described an intra-African network of 50 destinations served by scheduled and ad hoc charters, STAT Times reported.

New routes have been reported regularly. Air Cargo News reported in June 2025 that Astral had launched a Boeing 767-300 freighter service between Hong Kong and Brisbane, flown on an ACMI basis for Aus Air Cargo, and in May 2026 that it had started a weekly freighter service between Nairobi and Asmara in Eritrea; the same magazine noted a Haikou–Johannesburg route added in October 2025. In April 2026 STAT Times reported that the airline had returned its 767-300 freighter to service on routes linking Nairobi with Jeddah, Riyadh, Sharjah and Dubai World Central.

Fleet figures differ by source. In May 2026 Air Cargo News counted three aircraft — a converted Boeing 767-300, a 767-200 and a 737-400 — and reported that Astral had postponed its order for two Embraer E190 freighters indefinitely. The company’s fleet page, viewed in November 2026, lists five: two 767-300 freighters, one 767-200 freighter and two 737-400 freighters, with plans for a further 767-300, Boeing 737-700 freighters and, from 2027 to 2029, Boeing 777-300ER freighters.

The airline sells its capacity under named products: Astral Express for time-critical shipments, Astral Pharma for temperature-controlled pharmaceuticals, Astral DGR for dangerous goods, Astral Fresh for perishables, and Astral Protect for high-value cargo, as its website describes them.

How cargo airlines present themselves.

Cargo airlines address a particular audience: freight forwarders, shippers and airport partners. Much of their identity travels on the aircraft itself. A freighter carries the livery of its parent airline or of its own cargo brand, and the fleet photographs that airlines publish on their websites and in press releases are among the most visible images of the business. In this group, the guides describe those liveries only as dated sources describe them.

Maps and schedules do a large share of the work. Cargo airlines publish network maps, hub information and seasonal timetables, because customers plan around routings and capacity as much as destinations. Nippon Cargo Airlines, for example, posts its summer and winter timetables and its road feeder schedules on its website, while Qatar Airways Cargo announces new freighter routings with their stops and weekly capacity in tonnes.

Product names carry much of the rest. Special cargo is sold under short names that the airlines set out on their own pages and in press releases, covering services for pharmaceuticals, perishables, live animals, couriers and high-value goods, each described in the terms the airline chooses. Qatar Airways Cargo, for instance, names products such as Pharma, Fresh and TechLift. The guides quote these names as the airlines give them and do not compare one service with another.

The working end of a cargo brand is digital. Shipment tracking by air waybill number, online booking portals, fuel surcharge notices and schedule downloads are where customers meet the identity day to day. The guides in this group set out what dated sources say about each airline’s history, ownership, fleet and network, and treat the palettes and typefaces shown here as unofficial interpretations rather than official brand assets.

“Africa’s Premier Cargo Carrier,” in its own words.

Recognition is a large part of how Astral presents itself. Its website calls it a seven-time winner of the STAT Times African All-Cargo Carrier of the Year award, first won in 2011; English Wikipedia lists the award in 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2023. The company also lists membership of the African Airlines Association and of TIACA, the international air cargo association, and says it joined the ICAO CORSIA carbon-offset scheme in 2019.

Partnerships with larger carriers sit alongside its own flying. The February 2025 memorandum with Emirates SkyCargo covered work on interline options and block space agreements, and Astral’s chief executive described it, in remarks reported by STAT Times, as a step in more than fifteen years of commercial partnership between the two airlines. English Wikipedia also records an Indian subsidiary, Pradhaan Air Express, operating from October 2022.

The brand speaks in continental terms. The website’s tagline is “Africa’s Premier Cargo Carrier,” it describes the airline as “Moving Africa’s Cargo Forward,” and its profile frames the business as “Built for Africa, Connected to the World.” It describes customers including freight forwarders, shippers and humanitarian organisations, and lists ad hoc, ACMI and scheduled charter capacity alongside its scheduled routes. In 2025, the company says, it marked its 25th anniversary.

Those phrases are the company’s own. The dated record from other sources is narrower and more concrete: the licences of 2001 noted by English Wikipedia, the Emirates SkyCargo memorandum of 2025 reported by STAT Times, and the routes and fleet counts reported by Air Cargo News between 2025 and 2026.

For a design guide, Astral Aviation shows how a small freighter fleet can carry a continental brand through route maps, named cargo products and award badges rather than size. Compare Emirates SkyCargo, its partner under the 2025 memorandum, and Emirates, the airline behind that cargo division. For this guide we use a teal, a warm sand and an orange accent with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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