Emirates SkyCargo marked one year of passenger freighter operations on March 16 with more than 27,800 cargo flights on passenger aircraft, commencing just four days after Covid-19 had been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO). Nabil Sultan, Divisional Senior Vice President – Cargo, Emirates, said, “It has been exactly one year since what was considered impossible in the air cargo industry became not just a reality but a strong operational pillar for Emirates SkyCargo. Prior to the pandemic, nearly two thirds of our total cargo was transported in the bellyhold of our passenger flights. With increasing flight suspensions and restrictions on passenger travel imposed due to Covid-19 in early March 2020, we could foresee a situation where there would no longer be adequate cargo capacity available in the market to transport essential supplies. In order to bolster the cargo capacity offered by our 11 Boeing 777 freighters and make sure that we could meet the urgent demand for goods such as PPE, ventilators and other pharmaceutical goods and food supplies from across the world, we proactively made a radical and innovative plan to utilise our wide-body passenger aircraft to operate cargo only flights. We trialled this passenger freighter concept with a flight to Kuwait on March 16 last year. Over the next few weeks, as regular passenger operations were completely suspended, we started increasing our passenger freighter flights to a point where we had close to 90 passenger aircraft being used for cargo operations.”

Pickkup is now aiming to expand its services to South’s major metropolitan cities Bengaluru and Chennai, apart from starting operations in Vijaywada and Vishakhapatnam this year. With plans to have operations in 5 cities over the next few months, Pickkup aims to reach a revenue of Rs 10-12 crore by the next financial year 2021-22. The startup plans to raise seed capital in the upcoming financial year to fuel its expansion plans including establishing operations in multiple cities and hiring new fleet. The expansion plans come in the wake of stupendous post COVID growth, with the startup registering a 20-fold rise in delivery volumes over the past 11 months. The demand for Pickkup’s on-demand last-mile delivery services grew tremendously from enterprises particularly from retail and e-commerce players. Apart from Bengaluru, Chennai the tech enabled last mile delivery startup is also ready to expand its operations to other Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. While the operations in Bengaluru are set to start next month, the startup is expected to take off in Chennai and Vijayawada in June and Vishakhapatnam by October this year. Over the next two fiscal years, Pickkup aims to have operations in eight cities with an expected revenue of Rs 50 crore. With a number of its partners having multi city presence, the startup already has order commitments from a series of businesses and e commerce platforms in Bengaluru and Chennai. The startup already has order commitments from businesses, bakery outlets, retail and several e commerce platforms in Bengaluru where operations are set to take off immediately. “With our technology-driven services enabling a highly efficient local delivery model, Pickkup has emerged as the fastest …

Gati-KWE has launched advanced air freight solutions for pharma, electronics and auto ancillaries. The company has also earmarked a budget of Rs 100 crore for infrastructure and technology development in FY21-22. “Our airfreight solutions offer the convenience of nationwide reach with customised solutions, smooth connectivity and tie-ups with leading commercial airlines in the country. We have an aggressive expansion plan, targeting robust growth of 30 per cent Y-o-Y by FY22 with the airfreight business contributing a healthy double digit to the topline. We are committed to add value to our customers’ supply chains by providing end-to-end air cargo and multi-modal transport solutions in a time-efficient and cost-effective manner,” said Bala Aghoramurthy, Deputy Managing Director, Gati-KWE. With direct connections to 34 commercial airports across the country and strategic tie-ups with India’s leading airlines, Gati-KWE ensures cargo deliveries within 24-48 hours to almost all key locations. The presence of trained staff ensures that even dangerous goods or hazardous materials (hazmat) are handled efficiently and transported with complete safety and care. Customers rely on Gati-KWE for air freight services with value-added services and customised delivery options like multiple cut-offs, late pick-ups, next day deliveries, and more. Gati-KWE operates Air Transit Centres (ATCs) in eight metro cities across India and is expediting efforts to strategically position some of the ATCs near the airports for facilitating faster and multiple retrievals of cargoes. Two more ATCs proposed to be launched in Chandigarh and Indore can bolster the company’s air freight services even further. In order to facilitate seamless multi-modal cargo transportation across the country, Gati-KWE is set to launch a state-of-the-art 1.5 lakh sq. ft. Surface Transportation Centre (STC) at Delhi in June 2021 and follow …

To facilitate assessment of containers requirement as well its fulfilment, FIEO has developed a first level marketplace wherein exporters can post their container demands online. The e-module will help in ground level assessment of containers required in the country while simultaneously enabling the exporting community to negotiate competitive quotes for their requirements. The web link has been made live and exporters across the country have started posting their container requirement for various origin-destination pairs. The containers requirement uploaded through the e-module are also made visible to shipping lines, freight forwarders or others so that they can express their interest to fulfil such demands. This will also help them to better assess the demand of containers in the country so as to meet it with repositioning of containers or bringing empties. The e-module will also address the issue of container shortage reported by exporters, affecting their shipments and pulling down country’s exports and claims made by shipping lines that they are fully equipped to provide containers between 1-3 days at all locations for all destinations except for few destinations in Africa as congestions and berthing of ships at these destinations is taking 8-10 days’ time.

Confirming the airline’s capabilities for safeguarding the integrity of time and temperature-sensitive pharmaceutical products from point of origin to destination, Oman Air has been certified IATA Center of Excellence for Independent Validators for Pharmaceutical Logistics (CEIV Pharma). In successfully obtaining the industry-wide standard, the airline now aims to grow its participation as an important carrier for the global bio-pharma industry. Abdulaziz Al Raisi, CEO, Oman Air, comments, “The certification underpins our capabilities as a global cargo carrier for the quality handling of time and temperature-sensitive healthcare products. This is especially significant during the current COVID crisis, a time when the integrity of vital medications, including vaccines, relies entirely on safe and dependable cold chain expertise both in the air and on the ground. To do so, our customers can benefit from our state-of-the-art facilities at the Muscat International Air Cargo Hub.” Driven by the global biopharma industry, IATA’s CEIV Pharma program encompasses and, often times, supersedes many of the existing standards and guidelines including European Good Distribution Practice, World Health Organization (Annex 5) and United States Pharmacopeia Standards. Obtaining certification demands a high level of commitment from airlines along with exacting standards for pharmaceuticals handling. Oman Air successfully completed a thorough analysis of its business processes and product quality environments, and underwent rigorous evaluation of its pharmaceutical quality management systems, process standards and document review, risk assessments and several internal audits.

In spite of Covid challenges, Indian Railways surpassed last year’s total Cumulative freight loading on March 11, 2021; cumulative freight loading touched 1145.68 million tonnes which is higher than total cumulative loading of last year (1145.61 million tonnes). Freight figures continue to maintain the high momentum in terms of loading and speed in the month of March 2021 as well for Indian Railways. On a month to month basis, up to March 11, 2021, Indian Railways loading was 43.43 million tonnes, which is 10 per cent higher compared to last year’ loading for the same period (39.33 million tonnes). On day to day basis, on 11th March, 2021, the freight loading of Indian Railways was 4.07 million tonnes, which is 34 per cent higher compare to last year’s loading for the same date (3.03 million tonnes). The average speed of Freight Trains in the month of March 2021 till March 11 was 45.49 kmph which is almost double compare to last year for the same period (23.29 kmph). A number of concessions/discounts are also being given in Indian Railways to make railways freight movement very attractive. Strong emergence of Business Development Units in Zones & Divisions, constant dialogue with the industry & logistics service providers, faster speed etc are adding to the robust growth of freight business for the Railways. COVID 19 has been used by Indian Railways as an opportunity to improve all-round efficiencies and performances.

Turkish Cargo has delivered 1.7 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine supplied by UNICEF from India to Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in cooperation with global shipping company Kuehne + Nagel. Apart from the vaccines, the carrier has successfully delivered hundreds of thousands of Covid-19 syringes belonging to UNICEF from Barcelona to Tunisia and Covid-19 vaccines from Amsterdam to Kiev, Tbilisi and Amman. In the past months, Turkish Cargo has delivered China’s Sinovac vaccines to different destinations in the world. The carrier uses its ‘TK Pharma’ product to transport medicines and vaccines to all over the world. Creating a global pharmaceutical corridor among more than 400 destinations in the world, Turkish Cargo reaches more than 300 destinations, 96 of which are direct cargo destinations. With the widest flight network in the world, Turkish Cargo takes an important responsibility in delivering Covid-19 vaccines to the whole world, and continues to cooperate with national and international authorities within the range of struggling the global pandemic.

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones (APSEZ) has received a Letter of Intent (LOI) from the Ministry of Ports and Shipping of Sri Lanka and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, acting on behalf of the Government of Sri Lanka, pursuant to approval from the Sri Lankan Cabinet of Ministers for the development and operations of West Container Terminal (WCT) in Colombo, Sri Lanka. APSEZ will partner with John Keells Holdings PLC, Sri Lanka’s largest diversified conglomerate, and with the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) as a part of the consortium awarded this mandate. The WCT will be developed on a Build, Operate and Transfer basis for a period of 35 years as a public-private partnership. WCT will have a quay length of 1400 meters and alongside depth of 20 meters, thereby making it a prime transhipment cargo destination to handle Ultra Large Container Carriers. The project is expected to boost WCT’s container handling capacity and further consolidate Sri Lanka’s locational advantage as one of the world’s top strategic nodes along the busiest global transhipment route. The Colombo Port is already the most preferred regional hub for transhipment of Indian containers and mainline ship operators with 45 per cent of Colombo’s transhipment volumes either originating from or destined to an Adani port terminal in India. The network impact of this partnership is significant and expected to be mutually benefitted from the string of 7 container terminals across its 12 ports that Adani operates along the Indian coastline handling an annual volume of over 6 million TEUs. This partnership will multiply and accelerate the transhipment options that will become available to serve various shipping lines and other potential port customers across the …

The CMA CGM Group has chosen ECS Group as its exclusive GSA to help support the expansion of its new air division, CMA CGM Air Cargo, in the air cargo industry. CMA CGM Air Cargo has operated its first full-freight flight on March 13 between Liège and Chicago. By combining their expertise, the two specialists’ aim is to connect Europe to international markets – starting with the United States. With four Airbus A330-200F aircraft, the CMA CGM Group chose Liège (LGG), a dynamic intermodal freight hub, as the location for its European base, and will begin by operating flights to Chicago O’Hare (ORD) in the USA. This is the first stage of the roll-out of this business strategy, which is designed to offer clients broad global coverage. There are also plans to launch new destinations in the United States, which will be announced shortly. As part of CMA CGM AIR CARGO’s worldwide roll-out, the CMA CGM Group is working with ECS Group via a global cargo capacity marketing partnership. The leading GSA is determined to champion this strategy and has already set up dedicated teams in Europe and the United States. Adrien Thominet, CEO, ECS Group said, “ECS Group is extremely honoured to support this strategic move by CMA CGM, a group that is already an expert in chartering and logistics. Our flexibility, our sales network and our business know-how all mean we can amplify the added value the airline is looking for.” This means that the ECS sales teams are hard at work to market capacity on the Group’s new partner’s flights to all freight forwarders. And to do just that, they have all the business intelligence, revenue optimisation …

In order to streamline processes for the transportation of Dangerous Goods (DGs), Emirates SkyCargo and the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority have signed an MoU. Under the terms of the agreement, the two entities will work together to strengthen mechanisms to proactively share information on certain classes of DG booked for transport on Emirates SkyCargo through Dubai. This will complement the information that is already provided as part of the Dangerous Goods Declaration submitted to the DCAA as part of the approvals process for the transportation of goods classified as DG in accordance with IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations. The MoU also aims to develop an approval process for transporting such cargo, creating better efficiency and reducing wait-times pre transportation. The MoU was signed by Mohammed Abdulla Lengawi, Executive Director, Aviation Security and Accidents Investigation Sector, Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and Budoor Al Maazmi, Emirates Cargo Government Business Development Manager in the presence of Nabil Sultan, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President, Cargo. Nabil Sultan, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President, Cargo, said, “Safety is one of the key operational pillars for Emirates and through this agreement we will work closely with the authorities to ensure that our DG operations are efficient and comply with all safety requirements.” Mohammed Abdulla Lengawi, Executive Director, Aviation Security and Accident Investigation Sector, DCAA, said, “We are pleased to cooperate with Emirates SkyCargo through the signing of the MOU which will link the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority system with that of Emirates SkyCargo and contribute to streamline processes for transport of Dangerous Goods making it easier for customers including air freight agents to obtain a No Objection Certificate (NOC) for transporting the goods. We have issued over 26,090 …