Category Archives: Aviation

In a joint effort to provide care and support to children hailing from COVID-affected families, Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, Kempegowda International Airport Foundation (KIAF) and Sparsha Trust have come together to launch Chinnara Dhama, an initiative to provide shelter and education to 300 girl children. ‘Chinnara Dhama’, in Kannada translates to “A Sanctuary for young children” and will be a residential and learning facility within the campus ‘Makkala Dhama’. While KIAF is the CSR arm of Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL), Sparsha Trust is a Bengaluru-based NGO that is working towards creating a safe space for vulnerable children by providing them with care, protection, and education. Chinnara Dhama will be managed under KIAF’s flagship programme Namma Shikshana (Our Education). The initiative will provide safe and secure lodging facilities, as well as social and psychological support to girl children. It will provide access to quality education by enrolling the children at one of the BIAL-adopted schools. The children will also be provided with basic and vocational skills that are required to develop their social competencies.

DHL Express launched the construction of a new stand alone, logistics hub, at the Abu Dhabi International Airport (ADIA). The 15,000sqm facility, on a 30,000sqm airside/landside plot, located in ADIA’s Future Cargo Area, is being developed in partnership with Abu Dhabi Airports Free Zone Authority (ADAFZ) – a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Airports – and Middle East General Enterprises (MGE). DHL’s new airport facility constitutes the company’s latest investment in strengthening the global trade links of the UAE’s capital and acts as a consolidated hub inclusive of an Import & Export Gateway, Service Center, Logistics Center & Road Network, with an initial head count of 210 employees. The new facility features a 10,800sqm built-up area, with future expansion potential to increase capacity by an additional 50%. The facility will be well equipped to handle up to 3,600 inbound and outbound/ transit shipments per hour, amounting to 86,400 shipments a day, with the ability to service customers in the Emirates of Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, as well as supporting other countries of DHL network and providing solutions that will improve their efficiency. It will additionally follow the most up to date TAPA security regulations, employing the latest technologies across all of the operation.

Brussels Airport Company and skeyes signed an agreement where Brussels Airport will become a 50 percent shareholder in SkeyDrone, a subsidiary of skeyes. SkeyDrone offers a range of services that enable safe and efficient drone operations. With this acquisition, Brussels Airport intends to play an active role in the drone technology developments and in the provision of drone services to various industries in Belgium and abroad. Over the past year, Brussels Airport has worked closely with skeyes and SkeyDrone on various drone projects in fields such as intrusion detection, aerodrome safety, operational efficiency, etc. “Brussels Airport’s investment in SkeyDrone is strategic and goes beyond investing in drone know-how and technology. It is an investment in co-creating the future of unmanned air traffic together with 2 key players in this field, skeyes and SkeyDrone. With SkeyDrone, we can fully explore, develop and commercialise drone management systems and drone services that can be used on a daily basis by clients in various industries,” says Arnaud Feist, CEO of Brussels Airport Company.

Continental Carriers Pvt Ltd, once again, is excited to announce 6th Air Craft movement from Europe to India on 12th October 2021 . The P2006T is a TWIN ENGINE/ FOUR Seater cantilever high-wing monoplane with a retractable tricycle landing gear. The movement entailed dismantling/stuffing of the Air Craft from Europe to India in two of 40’HC Continental Carriers Pvt. Ltd., a proud member of the IATA Family, has been in the Global Freight Forwarding business since 1957, as one of the pioneer Custom Broker License Holders, and has a strong partner presence around the world. For over a decade, the Group’s Aerospace Team has been the first choice for private airlines, OEMs, MROs, and lessors. We diligently cater to AOGs, ODD Dimension, and HAZ movements all across the world

Blue Dart, has launched its ‘Diwali Express’ offer to uphold the joy of the festive season. The offer will be valid from October 11th 2021 to November 06th 2021. A discounted rate of 40% can be availed on all Diwali Gift shipments, both domestic and international; providing customers with a one-stop solution for all their logistics needs. While the Domestic Offer will be applicable on Domestic DP shipments weighing between 2kgs to 10kgs, the International Offer will apply on International Non Doc and TDI 12 Non Doc shipments weighing between 2kgs to 10kgs, 15kgs & 20kgs. Blue Dart consistently upgrades its products and services to ensure that customers receive nothing but the best. With this offer, customers can avail this service at a discounted rate and send gift hampers, sweets, apparel and much more to their near and dear ones at over 35,000 locations within India and 220 countries across the world. Ketan Kulkarni, Chief Commercial Officer, Blue Dart, says, “Blue Dart has always kept the customer at the centre of our business, and we continue to go the extra mile to bring our customers and their loved ones closer together, even if they are miles apart. The Diwali Express offer is launched, keeping this in mind. We want our customers to feel the happiness of the festive season and share this with their loved ones. We are keen to continue providing our customers with an incomparable value proposition, ensuring that our customers’ shipments reach their loved ones in perfect condition, well within time.”

Reliable Robotics announced a $100 million Series C funding round led by Coatue Management to support its first aircraft certification program and expedite the launch of commercial cargo operations. Coatue joins past investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Eclipse Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures and Pathbreaker Ventures to bring total fundraising over $133 million. With its airframe independent technology, Reliable’s remotely operated aircraft system is designed to expand safe, flexible and efficient air transportation service to more locations. Reliable Robotics is positioned to unlock access to thousands of underutilized regional and municipal airports in all corners of the country, greatly expanding air transportation options for cargo and eventually passengers. The company’s technology handles all phases of flight including taxi, takeoff, landing and parking, while licensed pilots remotely supervise each flight from a control center. The system has the capability to autoland on smaller airstrips in rural or remote areas without requiring expensive infrastructure to be installed and maintained.

The GMR group, which has interests in the Airports, Power and Transport sector, is beefing up its airport business. The group’s airport business was the second-largest airport developer in the world pre-Covid, based on annual passengers. The airport business has an operational capacity of 94 million passengers right now, with almost as much capacity (85 million) under development. The expansion by the group, whose airports business has attracted investments from French operator Groupe ADP, is being driven by the Delhi and Hyderabad airports. GMR has fully tied up financing for its capital expenditure. This gives it a much-needed headstart against the Adani group, which, after a delay, has started taking over the airports it had won as part of the government’s latest privatisation drive. The Covid period, when traffic is lower and there is slack to expand terminals, is being utilised to ramp up capacity, and scale up businesses such as Duty Free. This is to ensure that when traffic recovers the group has both the capacity and the skill to earn revenues not only to recover the investments, but possibly make profits.

Volocopter’s electric heavy-lift drone VoloDrone conducted its first public flight at ITS World Congress 2021. Together with the international logistics leader DB Schenker, Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), demonstrated VoloDrone’s seamless integration into the logistics supply chain with an end-to-end cargo transport demonstration. The partners showed their significant progress together since DB Schenker became a strategic investor of Volocopter in early 2020. The 3-minute test flight took off at 3:02 p.m. at homePORT Hamburg and reached a maximum altitude of 22 meters. For this delivery simulation, the electric heavy-lift utility drone was equipped with a load-box in between its landing gear. First, the demonstration teams secured a Euro-pallet sized load to the box under the VoloDrone, followed by a smooth take-off. After this, the aircraft brought the payload to a DB Schenker Cargo Bike and landed safely. Once the payload was transferred successfully, the Cargo Bike delivered its cargo to the final destination under the area’s park deck, marking the completion of the entirely electric, multimodal last-mile delivery. “This first public VoloDrone flight is a strong sign for Volocopter´s leading position in the UAM industry. We are the only UAM company offering solutions for passengers and goods that are flying fully scaled and publicly around the world,” says Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO. “Our VoloDrone will make existing logistics processes more robust, efficient, and sustainable. DB Schenker is an invaluable partner in our endeavor to untap the massive potential of our VoloDrone’s logistics use cases.”

FedEx Express has launched a new B777 freighter service between Europe and Japan as demand from the Asia Pacific market continues to boom. The four-times-per-week flight will depart from Paris Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG) Airport and fly directly to Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Additionally, one day a week, a flight will operate CDG to Singapore Changi Airport, before travelling on to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. The company said that the additional flights come after it reported a growth in e-commerce parcel volume by more than $1bn year over year out of Asia and Europe. Karen Reddington, president of FedEx Express Europe, said: “Online retail sales in APAC generated approximately $2.45trn in 2020 and with research suggesting e-commerce sales in APAC are expected to almost double by 2025, it is crucial that European businesses can easily and reliably access the growth potential this region offers.

Etihad Cargo, the cargo and logistics arm of the Etihad Aviation Group, has revamped the etihadcargo.com portal to provide customers with a heightened and intuitive online experience. The new-look website includes the introduction of quicker booking processes and streamlined flows, a personalised dashboard, recommendations, and dynamic pricing. Following customer feedback, the site also now incorporates a new dynamic map of the carrier’s global network which provides detailed information on Etihad Cargo teams and its global network outstation capabilities. Migrating to a customer-centric platform has cut the time customers take to complete a booking from more than two minutes previously to less than 45 seconds, equating to only 12 clicks, compared 23 needed before. New features such as requesting shipping quotes, booking ad-hoc prices which have been negotiated offline and booking shipments based on arrival timelines have been introduced to streamline the user experience. Customers will also have the ability to create and manage booking templates based on previous purchases. “With a fresh look and feel incorporating key features requested by customers, the site’s entire user experience has been enriched to provide improved response time and functionality across customers’ booking journeys,” explained Martin Drew, SVP Sales and Cargo at Etihad Aviation Group.