Category Archives: Aviation

While presenting the annual budget, Manpreet Singh Badal, Finance Minister, Punjab announced for the setting up of an air cargo unit at the Chandigarh International Airport. Badal said, “The air cargo facility will give a fillip to the industry and provide exporters better access to international and domestic markets.” Mohali Industry Association (MIA), states, “Exporters need to send consignments by road to the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi. The freight is lined up for 24 to 48 hours before being loaded in aircraft. A cargo facility closer home will save time, effort and money. Besides, it will promote ease-of-doing-business.”

A 24×7 customs clearance facility will be available at all seaports and airports till May 2020, to facilitate faster clearance of consignments to and from China once coronavirus diminishes. The Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) has written to all Chief Commissioners (Customs and Central Tax) asking them to immediately workout the arrangement and deployment of sufficient number of officers on 24×7 basis at sea ports, air cargo stations, Inland Container Depot (ICDs) and Container Freight Station (CFSs), etc falling in their jurisdiction to tackle any incipient instance of congestion/surge.

SpiceJet has launched a dedicated cargo flights from Vizag to Surat, Kolkata and Chennai. The cargo flights will be a boon to exporters, particularly those into seafood, as it can save on time considering that the products are mostly perishable. The freighter SG7051 will operate thrice a week, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays and the second freighter SG7051 for Kolkata will run on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

Mumbai International Airport (MIAL) has launched the fully automated export cold zone for agricultural and pharma products. The facility can hold over 700 tonnes at one time with a combined annual throughput of 5,25,000 tonne. The Export Cold Zone is equipped with truck docks with dock-levellers, spacious acceptance & examination area, automated workstations, X-Ray machines, ULD storage, Ballmat system for ULD transfer and cold rooms. Spread over an operational area of 6,000 square metres, the facility is equipped with 10 ULD build-up workstations and as many as 172 ULD storage positions.

According to S Ramakrishna, President, DCBA and Immediate Past Chairman, FFFAI, “We have already witnessed nearly 40 per cent decline in air cargo traffic (both export and import) to and from China owing to the outburst of Coronavirus in that country. Impact on sea cargo is yet to be assessed. Majorly impacted segments are chemicals, electric & electronic items, fertilizers etc, which top the Exim trade basket between the two countries. However, this incidence could also gain for the exporter to enter new markets and on the imports alternate source could be developed.”

Talking about how bad the situation for Indian logistics industry is, Sunil Arora, President, ACAAI, says, “China is a place where production happens on an hourly-basis, for example, if iPhone productions goes down by one hour that affects their capacity and volume on annual basis. Factories have been off for approx. one month now and it’s going to continue for may be next five to six months, and this is a concern. Hopefully, the coronavirus epidemic ends soon, even then the impact on production and thereafter supply chain will take almost five to six months to come back to normalcy. Moreover, if everything opens, we will see an upsurge which will again have an impact on imports and exports. Freight forwarding is one industry that is attached to all industries scenario. Hence, if we see the consequential impact across the industry, sectors dependent on imports or exports from China will bear the worst impact.”

With an interest to strengthen pharma supply chain in the country, GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL) has entered into an agreement with Agility. “As the operator of India’s first Pharma Zone offering an unbroken cold chain from truck-dock to the airside, Hyderabad Airport has been a strong proponent of collaboration with the industry leaders to help strengthen the pharma supply chain in the country,” said SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL. With the new partnership, GHIAL hopes to strengthen the supply chain system in India and pharma cargo sector.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) and its cargo wing AAICLAS will shortly open its perishable cargo centre at Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati. The centre is being built by Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) and expected to be functional by the end of March 2020. AAI had leased 4050 sq mt of land to AIDC for a period of seven years for establishing center for perishable cargo at Guwahati airport with a capacity to handle 10,000 MT of perishable cargo. The perishable cargo centre has been developed at a total cost of approx Rs20 crore. It will consist of state-of-the-art facilities as a one-stop facilitation center to process the perishable cargo with customs EDI facility and further forward and backward linkage project under TIES (Trade Infrastructure Export Scheme) by positioning airlines, freight forwarders, customs broker house.

With SpiceJet decision to launch air freight services along Chennai–Vizag– Kolkata, Visakhapatnam is set to get its first exclusive cargo flight. The flight which is capable of carrying 20 tonne of air cargo is expected to be launched in mid-February and operate on a daily basis.  The Andhra Pradesh Air Travelers Association (APATA) has been pursuing the introduction of air cargo flight from Vizag for quite some time. The association has also informed that Air India has agreed to cut the cargo rates from Visakhapatnam, as the cargo rates of Air India in Visakhapatnam are higher as compared to those in Hyderabad.

Surat Airport has opened the state-of-the-art domestic cargo terminal (DCT) on January 29, 2020. The terminal has an area of approx. 2,800 sqm out of which 1,400 sqm is the covered space capable of handling 50,000 metric tonne annually. Operated by AAI Cargo Allied and Logistics Services (AAICLAS), the terminal targets to increase cargo movement from 300 metric tonnes per month to more than 1000 metric tonne per month. Keku Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS, comments, “This terminal will cater to the ever-increasing air cargo demand of the south Gujarat region. We are looking at doubling the cargo transport in the next couple of months.”