Airbus SE is poised to begin taking orders for a freighter version of its A350 wide-body as soon as next month, in a challenge to Boeing Co.’s dominance in the market for dedicated cargo aircraft. The European planemaker has been speaking to more than a dozen potential customers and will seek board authorization to market the new plane in the coming weeks, provided it can line up enough commitments, according to people familiar with the matter. The program could officially launch by year-end, said the people, who sought anonymity discussing confidential matters. Going after a segment where Boeing has long held sway would mark a major strategic push for Airbus. Chief Executive Officer Guillaume Faury told Bloomberg News in April that he’s keen to challenge his U.S. rival and that the A350, a modern, lightweight plane with carbon-fiber wings and hull, would be “a strong candidate” for a freighter.

Cargo.one and Saudia Cargo say their recent partnership comes in light of rising demand for digital services. In mid-April, Saudia Cargo announced plans to add its capacity to the online booking portal as it continues with its digitalisation drive. The rollout is planned for June. Teddy Zebitz, chief cargo officer, Saudia Cargo said, “Overall, digitalisation is playing a vital role in the ecosystem. Everything from shipper to terminal to end user. Today digital solutions offer wide range of tools covering the needs of fast pace life and answer to rising expectation from our customers and partners. Our focus in utilising digitisation is to optimise our operation, provide seamless customer experience and strengthen the relation and help connect all global key players across the supply chain and have better alignment to optimize throughput and available capacity.”

Shyplite, an AI-powered logistics platform that enables businesses to automate their logistics and increase shipping efficiency by providing a single-window platform integrated with multiple carriers, has raised $ 1 Mn in revenue-based growth capital from N+1 capital. The company was bootstrapped with investments in the year 2015 from its founding members Nisschal Jain- Co-founder and Managing Partner, Sugam Jain- Co-founder and CEO and Parinay Itkan – Co-founder and COO & launched exactly five years ago on 9th June 2016. Shyplite will utilise the funds to support its expansion plans to enter the new segments like Fulfilment Centres and Hyperlocal deliveries to become an end-to-end logistics player and add more experts on board. As part of the expansion, Shyplite has committed nine fulfilment centres across India in cities including Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru. It is also bringing last-mile logistics players like Dunzo, Wefast and Shadowfax and others on its platform to help businesses with last-mile and same-day delivery service.

Emirates SkyCargo has announced extension of its fully automated cool room with 94 airline pallet positions at its EU GDP certified dedicated pharma facility at Dubai International Airport, a move which will further strengthen the carrier’s temperature sensitive pharma and vaccine handling capabilities in Dubai. This extension of cool room will provide an additional 2600 square metres of temperature-controlled environment (2-25 degrees Celsius) for the storage and handling of pharma products including vaccines at Emirates SkyCargo’s purpose-built GDP certified facility. The new extension is capable of holding an estimated 60-90 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines at one time. Ever since the outbreak of the pandemic, the airline is playing a leading role in the international distribution of COVID-19 vaccines. It has transported over 75 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines on more than 250 flights to over 60 destinations since late 2020.

IATA has reported in its latest market analysis that air cargo volumes in April this year continued to outpace pre-Covid (2019) levels. The association said this was largely due to the strong performance of carriers based in North America, the Middle East and Africa. Global air cargo demand in April 2021, measured in cargo-tonne kms (CTKs), was reported as 12% higher than in April 2019 (used instead of last year for comparison purposes due to impact of Covid). It added: “This solid cargo growth performance this month was primarily driven by North American airlines, but all the regions outside Latin America contributed positively to the growth outcome.” Willie Walsh, IATA’s director general, commented: “Air cargo continues to be the good news story for the air transport sector. Some regions are outperforming the global trend, most notably carriers in North America, the Middle East and Africa. Strong air cargo performance, however, is not universal. The recovery for carriers in the Latin American region, for example, is stalled.”

PMO figures covered in latest report by the official IRNA news agency showed that Iran’s ports capacity would reach 280 million tons per year with the completion of a handful projects this year. The report said total port handling capacity in Iran was around 180 million tons in the summer of 2013 when the current administrative government took office for a first four-year term. It said container capacity at ports, which is measured in twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU), will have doubled by mid-summer this year compared to eight years ago to reach a total of 8.5 million TEU. It said passenger handling at ports will have reached a target of 25 million people per year this year, up from 14 million in August 2013. The expansion of capacity in Iranian ports comes despite massive restrictions facing the country in the past three years because of US sanctions.

All the major port trusts with the exception of New Mangalore Port Trust handled much higher volumes during the first two months of the fiscal year that began in April from a year earlier. Deendayal Port Trust, India’s top State-owned port by cargo volumes, handled 22.799 mt during April-May from 17.189 mt a year ago, posting a growth of 32.64%, according to the ministry of ports, shipping and waterways. Paradip Port Trust handled 20.507 mt of cargo from 16.097 mt, an increase of 27.4% Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust handled 12.513 mt of cargo from 8.026 mt, registering a growth of 55.91%. Visakhapatnam Port Trust handled 11.832 mt of cargo, 18.95% more than the 9.947 mt handled during the same period last year. Mumbai Port Trust handled 9.210 mt from 7.541 mt a year ago, posting a growth of 22.13%. Kolkata Port Trust handled 9.090 mt from 7.438 mt with a growth of 22.21%.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released April 2021 data for global air cargo markets showing that air cargo demand continued to outperform pre-COVID levels (April 2019) with demand up 12%. As comparisons between 2021 and 2020 monthly results are distorted by the extraordinary impact of COVID-19, unless otherwise noted, all comparisons to follow are to April 2019 which followed a normal demand pattern. Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), was up 12% compared to April 2019 and 7.8% compared to March 2021. Seasonally adjusted demand is now 5% higher than the pre-crisis August 2018 peak. The strong performance was led by North American carriers contributing 7.5 percentage points to the 12% growth rate in April. Airlines in all other regions except for Latin America also supported the growth. Capacity remains 9.7% below pre-COVID-19 levels (April 2019) due to the ongoing grounding of passenger aircraft. Airlines continue to use dedicated freighters to plug the lack of available belly capacity. International capacity from dedicated freighters rose 26.2% in April 2021 compared to the same month in 2019, while belly-cargo capacity dropped by 38.5%.

Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) is launching a unique half-day virtual “Elementary Cargo Training Program (ECTP)” on Thursday, 10th June 2021 from 09:00 AM to 02:00 PM, on pan India basis. This initiative is first of its kind in the skilling programs happened so far in the air cargo industry. The ECTP course has been designed particularly for the ‘Base Level staff’ (blue collared) of air cargo industry, such as Loader, Helper, Packer, Equipment Operator etc. considering their important role while the EXIM cargo is being handled by them, about the operational aspects, knowledge on the equipment’s being handled by them with all the safety measures including health safety and security aspects while handling various types of cargo/special types of cargo, during their day-to-day routine work. The elaborate course material on ECTP has been developed by an elite group of trainers of ACFI Task Pillar on Skill Development, which will be imparted online during the period of COVID pandemic, first at Delhi on 10th June 2021 and then at the 5 ACFI Regional Chapters i.e. Bangalore, Ahmadabad, Chennai, Hyderabad, and Delhi in Hindi/ English or in the regional or local languages of ACFI respective Chapters.

Spoton Logistics, India’s premier technology-driven logistics company has announced the addition of supply chain solutions including service parts logistics to its service portfolio. The company is all set to offer end-to-end integrated express logistics and supply chain solutions to businesses across industry verticals. The complete suite of supply chain services will allow Spoton to execute factory inbound, end-customer distribution and in-plant operations in complex environments. The solution will encompass integrated warehousing, long-haul transportation, local redistribution part-load movements, mission-critical service parts deliveries, asset recovery and other value-added services integrated through seamless next-generation technology. Commenting on the development, Mr. Abhik Mitra, Managing Director, Spoton Logistics, stated, “Since 2012, we have continued to be one of the most preferred express and road transport logistics providers to many large and mid-scale companies in India, counting some of the best in business as our clientele. We are thrilled to embark on this journey of becoming a one-stop solution to our existing clients as well as opening new avenues of growth by acquiring new customers.”