‘Narrow-body freighters to play integral role domestic cargo growth’

Narrow-body freighters will play an integral role in the growth story of air cargo in India as we have witnessed in the matured markets like UAE, Europe and US,” says Ramesh Mamidala, Head of Cargo at Air India. “If we talk about domestic air cargo market, with the help of Indian freighter operators we can finally see capacity coming out of remote locations and cargo is getting picked up even from tier 2 and 3 cities. Domestic air cargo is moving at a good pace. The e-commerce sector is driving major growth volumes. E-commerce companies are more than happy to use air cargo for their premium shipments. Right now, they do have some issues at the service levels like infrastructure at the airport, therefore we are actively working as an airline with the airport operators to resolve the issues. As we become more quality oriented, more reliant we may see many shipments flying via air using belly of an aircraft in the coming years. We will also see a lot of freighter airlines coming in the space to operate both narrow body as well as wide body – narrow body for domestic and wide body for international market, this will be happening very aggressively in the next 5-10 years’ time,” he adds.