Lufthansa Cargo and Kuehne+Nagel (K+N) have launched paperless corridors for shipments between Europe and Asia as part of efforts to digitalise cargo. In a pilot phase, the two partners achieved 100% paperless shipments for general cargo on the lane between Germany and Hong Kong. This includes the use of electronic air waybills and other accompanying documents and paper pouches. In the next phase more lanes will be targeted. “By increasing the number of paperless lanes, a whole paperless corridor between Europe and Asia will be built for general cargo where the transport of paper could be eliminated,” Lufthansa Cargo said. The two companies said that paperless shipments were more environmentally friendly and created operational efficiency. Jan-Wilhelm Breithaupt, vice president global fulfillment management, Lufthansa Cargo, said: “We see great opportunities in this initiative as it supports all participants in pushing their handling efficiencies as well as increasing data availability and transparency throughout their network.

SF Airlines has added a second freighter service from Ezhou Huahu Airport to Europe as the carrier continues to ramp up operations from the recently opened hub. The twice-weekly service will operate to Frankfurt using a Boeing 747-400 freighter and joins SF Airlines’ first European service from Ezhou, which calls at Liege. SF Airlines said the flights will mainly transport “express mail, e-commerce cargo, general cargo”. The carrier already operates flights to Frankfurt from Wuxi and Wuhan. Ezhou Huahu Airport airport officially opened in July last year and is promoted as China’s first “professional cargo hub airport”. The first international flight from the airport took place in April. “Since April this year, SF Airlines has successively opened international routes from Ezhou to Liege in Belgium, Chennai in India, Delhi in India, Los Angeles in the US, Frankfurt in Germany and other places, initially forming an air network radiating from Ezhou to Europe, South Asia and North America layout,” the carrier said. “Next, SF Airlines will continue to develop international routes in Ezhou, improve the service capabilities of the international supply chain, help Ezhou Huahu Airport build a world-class air cargo hub, and boost the high-quality development of the local air logistics industry and export-oriented economy.” Earlier this year, SF Airlines added its 80th freighter aircraft. The SF Airlines fleet now includes three B747-400ERFs, 19 B767-300BCFs, 41 B757-200Fs, and 17 B737-300/400Fs.

Welspun One Logistics Parks (WOLP) has successfully raised INR 1,000 crores within four months of launching its second fund. It has also announced the opening of its “green shoe” option to raise an additional INR 1,000 crore. The potential corpus could reach INR 2,000 crore upon completion of the green shoe option, which would rank it among the largest in the domestic real estate alternatives space. With an advanced pipeline of land parcels in key warehousing micro markets such as MMR, Chennai, Bangalore, and Lucknow already in place, the fund 2 is well positioned to add 10-12 million square feet of new projects to its existing portfolio. This approach could potentially create an aggregate portfolio of 16-18 million square feet over the next 4-5 years across first and last-mile facilities in Tier 1 and 2 cities. The plan entails an overall investment outlay of over INR 8,000 crore, which will propel Welspun One to an AUM of USD 1 billion. Welspun One was the first to recognize the untapped potential for domestic investors, WOLP provided this opportunity through financialization of real estate by launching India’s first AIF of INR 500 crore in 2021. This fund successfully committed the entire corpus across six investments aggregating to ~6.5MM sf in a short span of ~1.5 years from its first close. Further, the portfolio has also seen excellent traction on the ground with ~50% of first fund’s portfolio leased and delivered.

CargoTech welcomes its fifth member: CharterSync which brings air cargo charter expertise to CargoTech, neatly rounding off the group’s product palette whilst at the same time directing a strong digital focus towards an air cargo niche that is still largely manual. CharterSync joining the CargoTech family opens up an entirely new product offering. Digitalisation within the air cargo charter segment has largely been unexplored to date. It lags behind scheduled air cargo capacity processes, and operations are still highly manual. The addition of CharterSync as the group’s fifth member, offers forwarders and airlines a unique opportunity to bring enhanced value and efficiency to their charter process without compromising on service levels. It further expands the CargoTech ecosystem to include experts across all segments, capable of elaborating on the big picture whilst at the same time tailoring solutions to individual customer requirements. Within CargoTech, CharterSync’s expertise creates a significant number of natural synergies with the other members that will now be explored. One immediate example is adapting Wiremind Cargo’s SkyPallet within CharterSync’s solution.

GMR Hyderabad Aviation SEZ, a 100 percent subsidiary of GMR Hyderabad International Airport, has signed a land lease agreement with Safran Aircraft Engines Services India, a subsidiary of Safran, a global leader in aircraft propulsion and equipment, space and defence markets with headquarters in Paris, France. Spread across 23.5 acres of the land parcel within the SEZ area, the facility will occupy around 36,500 sqm of built-up space, says a release from GMR. “The construction of the facility will commence in September 2023. The facility is expected to be handed over in December 2024. This facility in Hyderabad will be the largest MRO centre in the Safran Aircraft Engines network. Operations are set to commence in 2025 and will provide employment to about 1,000 workers at its peak operation capacity. The facility will adhere to Safran’s most stringent standards for industrial processes and machinery, including cutting-edge technologies like the latest integrated inspection methods and real-time monitoring of the maintenance shop process’s parameters. The new facility will operate on 100 percent sustainable green energy from the GMR solar farm.”

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate the new integrated terminal building of Veer Savarkar International Airport in Port Blair on Tuesday via video conferencing. According to the press release by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), the project is aimed at enhancing the connectivity infrastructure which has been a major focus of the government. “The inauguration of the New Integrated Terminal Building, built at a cost of around ₹710 crore, will play a key role in boosting connectivity of the island UT. With a total built up area of around 40,800 sqm., the new terminal building will be capable of handling about 50 lakh passengers annually. An Apron suitable for two Boeing-767-400 and two Airbus-321 types of aircraft has also been constructed at Port Blair Airport at a cost of ₹80 crore, making the airport now suitable for parking of ten aircrafts at a time,” the statement said.

Union Home Minister Amit Shah along with Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia reviewed the facilities and infrastructure of the country’s major airports recently. Officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) and other concerned agencies are taking significant steps in order to enhance and expand the facilities and infrastructure at major airports, said an official statement issued by a home ministry spokesperson. “Home Minister Shri @AmitShah and Minister for Civil Aviation Shri @JM_Scindia reviewed the facilities & infrastructure for major airports. The meeting aimed to address requirements arising out of fast-growing domestic and international aviation mobility in the country,” the spokesperson tweeted. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and other top officials of MoCA, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of Immigration, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Central Industrial Security Force, and Airports Authority of India attended the meeting. The government has been taking various measures to boost infrastructure and manpower at airports, including at Delhi airport, amid rising domestic air passenger traffic. Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla and other top officials of MoCA, Intelligence Bureau, Bureau of Immigration, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security, Central Industrial Security Force, and Airports Authority of India attended the meeting.

The global air cargo market is under some severe yield pressure at the moment, says Mark Sutch, Chief Commercial Officer – CarGo International, IndiGo. Hence, it is imperative that freighters are planned and operated on routes that are viable and have a good balance of inbound and outbound tonnage, he adds. The challenge as always with freighters is to find the right balance for import/ export and we are seeing some good momentum in this aspect. Naturally, our markets are limited to the performance capability of the A321P2F freighters which have typical narrow body ranges and therefore do not have the ability for US/ Europe CarGo where there is year-round demand. Our Delhi- Istanbul and Mumbai-Istanbul passenger flights have also begun operations with B777s, and we, therefore, have some new widebody capacity that is being sold – not only to IST but beyond to a range of European destinations through our partnership with Turkish, he says. Citing IATA’s latest airline profitability report, he stated that IATA predicted cargo revenues of $142.3bn this year, which is 31.3% down on last year and behind the $149.4bn that was previously expected. In FY23, India’s air cargo traffic volume is estimated to have remained unchanged compared to the previous fiscal year, standing at 3.14 million tonnes.

A crucial pain point which forwarders face today is the frequent breakdown of the Customs IT System, especially on weekends and holidays, which delays Customs clearance of EXIM cargo, says C K Govil, Vice President, ACAAI. He adds, “Export shipments miss the flight connections. Import cargo doesn’t reach factories on time. Besides, the trade has to pay heavy demurrage charges to the Custodians for no fault of theirs. The Custodians, Cargo Terminal Operators, and Airlines also face technological failures in their respective domains, but the brunt has to be borne by their customers. No SLAs are defined to provide relief to Customers. On the non-technical front, the air freight forwarders and shippers suffered a major setback when the Government discontinued the Sunset clause of GST beyond September 30th, 2022, despite the industry’s multiple requests. It resulted in a levy of 18 per cent GST on airfreight against only 5 per cent on sea freight. It raised operational costs and also posed competitive problems for Indian Shippers.”

Teleport officially inducted its first Airbus A321 Freighter (A321F) aircraft into its air logistics fleet. “This is set to strengthen its position as the market leader in terms of most air cargo volume by tonnage across Southeast Asia,” says release. Teleport, founded only five years ago in May 2018, saw accelerated growth in the last 24 months driven by its three advantages; operating the largest air logistics network in Southeast Asia using the surplus belly space of 204 wide-and narrow-body AirAsia passenger aircraft, a focus on full digitisation and data to coordinate end-to-end e-commerce deliveries, and the continuous addition of deep third-party airline relationships. Today, over 1,500 businesses ‘Teleport’ their goods to over 80 destinations in Southeast Asia, using one digital Airway Bill, and with a guarantee that ‘it arrives tomorrow’.