Category Archives: Aviation

DRONAMICS has announced its very first strategic manufacturing partnership with Quickstep Holdings Limited, a tier one manufacturer and the largest independent aerospace composites business in Australia. This turnkey solution partnership will help DRONAMICS accelerate the production of the Black Swan cargo drones. With the first units landing in 2023, long-term plans target the ramp-up of production of hundreds of Black Swan cargo drones annually in the next four years. The agreement comes at a key time as it recently became the first cargo drone company to obtain a European drone airline license. The manufacturing will take place in Quickstep’s Australian facilities, globally recognised for their innovative engineering and premium manufacturing capabilities and trusted by the world’s most advanced aerospace players. Konstantin Rangelov, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of DRONAMICS said: “The first strategic manufacturing partnership is a key milestone in our mission to enable same day delivery for everyone, everywhere. As an innovator who is challenging the status quo in cargo mobility, we are thrilled to have the support of an experienced partner like Quickstep to help us realize the full potential of our solution.”

Emirates SkyCargo took delivery of its latest Boeing 777-F to boost its fleet capacity and cater to the growth in the industry. The carrier has seen significant increase in cargo loads across its products, including pharma and fresh produce. In 2021-22, annual tonnage carried crossed 2.1 million, an increase of 15%, with transport of perishables crossing 260,000 tonnes, and both pharma and valuable goods each growing by 17%. Nabil Sultan, Divisional Senior Vice President Emirates SkyCargo said, “The new freighter will help increase our capacity and boost our ability to deliver vital goods and facilitate trade globally. Despite the challenging headwinds this year, the air cargo industry is booming, and we’ve been flat out since the pandemic began. Emirates SkyCargo will continue its journey as one of the world’s largest and best air cargo airlines by investing in our fleet, our global network, technology, and world-class logistics infrastructure at our Dubai hub and beyond.”

To outsource ULD management and customize logistics solutions, Western Global Airlines has confirmed a five-year ULD (Unit Load Device) agreement with ACL Airshop, a leading international service partner. Western Global Airlines and ACL Airshop are working together to measurably enhance the logistics efficiencies of Western Global’s ULD fleet, including the introduction of ULD Control™ for real-time tracking of ULDs. That, combined with ACL’s global Operations Center and the innovative “FindMyULD” mobile App all operate together for better utilization rates and cost efficiencies for client airlines that use ACL’s technology suite. Wes Tucker, COO-Western Hemisphere for ACL Airshop said, “We feel privileged to serve Western Global Airlines with our complete suite of equipment, technology, and logistics services. Our objective is to cost-effectively help Western Global keep growing as a market leader in air cargo.”

Skye Air Mobility has collaborated with Curefoods, a cloud kitchen startup founded by Cult.fit co-founder and former Flipkart executive Ankit Nagori in 2020, to deliver frozen food in specially built temperature-controlled packaging via drones. From July 25 to July 31, a series of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) trials will be conducted, carrying about 5 kilos of frozen food per flight, covering a road distance of about 30 km from Curefoods’ warehouse in Jhund Sarai to the Curefoods kitchen outlet on Golf Course Road in Gurgaon, near Delhi. During the trials, the drone will complete an aerial distance of 20 km in less than 30 minutes. Once the drone is deployed for commercial use, Skye Air plans to carry about 50 kilos of frozen food in a single flight. “During the pilot, we are deploying drones that will complete around 8 trips daily and carry close to 40 kilos on average. In the future, when we consider how we might scale this, we will send out a drone to carry the payload of 50 kilos. Because this food is frozen, we are keeping the temperature at minus 20 degrees during the flight, and making sure that the food’s quality does not degrade during the journey. Another essential component of this project is giving the client feedback in real-time,” said Ankit Kumar, CEO, Skye Air Mobility in a statement.

Saudi Arabia is seeking companies such as Amazon.com, Alibaba Group, and DHL Express to boost its air cargo and distribution operations, said Mohammed Fahad Alkhuraisi, vice president for strategy at the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation in an event. The country plans to stage a number of roadshows by the end of 2023 as it seeks to persuade the e-commerce and air freight giants to help ramp up its own operations and infrastructure. It will invite private companies from abroad to create local partnerships and set up freight-forwarding and warehousing activities, Alkhuraisi added. In line with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 framework to reduce its dependence on oil and diversify its economy, the advance into air cargo and logistics aims to accelerate the capacity of the kingdom’s air cargo sector to more than 4.5 million tonnes per year by the end of the decade as part of a USD100 billion plan to enlarge the aviation sector.

American Airlines has finalised an agreement with biofuel company Gevo, Inc. to purchase 500 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) over five years, the most significant SAF offtake commitment to date for the carrier. “The announcement is a historic step forward for American and our industry as we work to reduce our carbon footprint,” said Jill Blickstein, Vice President, Sustainability, American Airlines. “The use of SAF is a cornerstone of our strategy to decarbonise air travel. While this landmark investment represents meaningful action by American Airlines, driving progress at the scale and pace we need requires critical policy action in Washington and at the state level. Alongside our oneworld partners, we’re proud to lead the way in the shift to SAF and make progress toward our shared climate goals.” American’s Gevo agreement was developed alongside others in the oneworld alliance, said a statement from the airline. “In September 2020, oneworld became the first global airline alliance to announce a target of carbon neutrality by 2050, establishing its commitment to long-term sustainability for the industry. The alliance followed up the commitment with an intermediate goal to achieve 10 percent SAF use across member airlines by 2030.”

Maersk has ordered three new 767-300 freighters from Boeing and arranged with Miami-based cargo airline Amerijet to fly them on trans-Pacific routes as the company’s air cargo division moves to gain a strategic foothold in the U.S. market. During the past eight months, Maersk has poured resources from its hyper-profitable container line business into transforming the in-house airline into a full-service air logistics provider and expanding globally beyond its traditional sphere in Europe. Maersk will receive three 767 all-cargo jets from Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory in 2022, and outsource their operation to Amerijet, said Maersk spokesman Povl Rasmussen. The freighters are expected to enter service this year between Asia and North America. “As previously announced, A.P. Moller – Maersk is both strengthening and expanding its air freight offering,” the company said in a statement. “Air freight is a crucial enabler of flexibility and agility in global supply chains as it allows our customers to tackle time-critical supply chain challenges and provides transport mode options for high value cargo. Maersk’s owned controlled capacity is designed to make supply chain journeys more resilient and intuitive.  When deployed later this year, the three new 767 aircraft will be based in the U.S. and operated by Amerijet exclusively for Maersk,” the statement added.

Indore’s Devi Ahilyabai Holkar Airport is all set to increase its cargo handling capacity with the bigger domestic air cargo complex being built at the airport,  finalized by the Airport Authority of India’s Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Company Limited (AAICLAS). Construction work has also been started and the building is expected to be ready before the end of this year. This new cargo terminal will be set up at an estimated cost of Rs. 15 crore. A 2000 sq. meter land at the airport’s old terminal building area has been identified for this new domestic air cargo terminal. This new domestic cargo complex will also house a dedicated complex to be set up on a 300sq meter area for perishable cargo to allow handling of perishable items like fruits, vegetables, medicines etc. While the rest of the space will be used for handling domestic cargo, as per officials of AAICLAS, the new cargo terminal has been planned to handle a minimum of 73,000 metric tonnes of cargo annually as against existing capacity of the old domestic air-cargo terminal’s capacity of around 12,000- 15,000 metric tonnes annually.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) and airport operators have targeted an outlay of over Rs 90,000 crore from 2019-20 to 2024-25, for expansion and modification of existing airport terminals, construction new terminal buildings, expansion or strengthening of existing runways, aprons, upgrading airport navigation services (ANS), control towers, and technical blocks across several airports in the country. AAI has leased out six of its airports namely, Chaudhary Charan Singh International Airport (Lucknow), Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport (Ahmedabad), Mangaluru International Airport, Jaipur International Airport, Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport (Guwahati) and Thiruvananthapuram International Airport for operation, management and development through PPP mode on long-term basis during the past three years.   

The Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL) has plans to increase its revenue from international cargo movement, with the construction of the dedicated international cargo terminal. According to reports, the new terminal will feature modern facilities and technologies for storage and warehousing of variety of cargo. The airport aims to provide faster cargo movement and management. “The plan is to transform CIAL into a major cargo hub in the long run anticipating increase in the cargo passing through Kochi in the coming years. The terminal’s structural work is completed and the terminal is expected to be launched this year,” said an airport official in a statement.