Rhenus Air & Ocean is consolidating its position in Germany with the planned takeover of the freight forwarding business of the logistics company, BLG International Forwarding GmbH & Co KG. Rhenus is using the acquisition to tap into new business fields and is making its global network available to the BLG Group. Provided that the cartel authorities approve the development, Rhenus will acquire nine air and sea freight sites on April 1, 2021. The nine freight forwarding sites operated by BLG International Forwarding with about 100 employees are due to be integrated within the existing network of Rhenus Air & Ocean in Germany, which currently has twelve branches, from the beginning of April onwards. They include business sites in Hamburg and Bremerhaven, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart as well as Munich. This will enable the company to handle greater volumes through its LCL gateway in Hilden and its air freight hub at Frankfurt, for example. “We’ve gained a strong partner in Rhenus Air & Ocean and it’s making available its extensive network to our customers thanks to its global presence,” says Jens Wollesen, the Contract Board Member at BLG LOGISTICS. “BLG is strategically adapting to changes in market conditions through the sale of our freight forwarding business. Even if we’ll no longer be represented right across Germany in terms of freight forwarding in future, we’ll continue to provide extensive international services in our Contract, Automobile and Container divisions.” “We’ve paved the way for the continual expansion of our air and sea freight activities during the last few years. Thanks to the additional business sites, employees and business activities, we’re consolidating our network in the Air & Ocean division in Germany. We’d also …

Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA), a premier B-school in the Asia Pacific region has recently established a Centre for Transportation and Logistics, co-chaired by Dr. Debjit Roy and Dr. Sandip Chakrabarti, faculty at IIMA. The initiative comes with a vision to facilitate cutting-edge research in transportation, logistics and allied areas, and thereby contribute to scholarship, practice, and policymaking in India and abroad. Moreover, it also helps to strengthen and scale-up IIMA’s presence and impact in the transportation and logistics sector. Dr. Debjit Roy, Faculty and Co-founder, CTL at IIMA said, “We are delighted to have established a centre that will address existing roadblocks and challenges in the transportation and logistics sector, which is one of the most instrumental sectors for our country’s economic growth. Our objective behind establishing the CTL is to contribute to improving the efficiency of multi-modal transportation systems and supply chain logistics, thereby promoting economic growth and fostering sustainable development. We have faculty coming in from across the institute that have joined the centre as members. A group of internationally-acclaimed professors with outstanding research accomplishments from North American, European and Asian universities have joined the centre’s research advisory committee for providing guidance in centre development and supporting a range of academic activities.” The Centre will address critical passenger and freight transportation, and logistics challenges

sKart Global Express, a brainchild of Skyways, has launched its first Depot in Noida with an airline SpiceJet for first and last-mile logistics solutions. The association would benefit customers by adding more deliverable locations besides increasing the efficiencies by working on their strength which would enable them to enhance their capabilities. Uniqueness of Skart’s solution is to provide product as per customers’ requirement of speed & cost for each consignment with complete visibility & ease of making payment without any major contractual commitments thus enabling them to focus on their core job. Speaking at the launch, Yashpal Sharma, Managing Director, Skyways Group said, “We are delighted to announce our partnership with SpiceJet with the launch of our First Depot in Noida. SKart will do the first and last-mile operation along with our other group company Phantom Express for the customers in NCR. This partnership will be enhanced to other parts of India over the next few months and will hope to cover 0ver 12000 zip codes by the middle of 2022” In spite of this sector contributing 6 per cent to GDP, 33 per cent to the manufacturing sector output and about 45 per cent to the country’s exports this sector is plagued with various limitations. One of the key elements is the lack of access to technology and limited logistics service options for taking their products to domestic or global customers besides higher costs. These have been the major impediments for growth of SMEs. To stress on the growth narrative further, Sanjeev Gupta, CEO, of SpicExpress adds, “We are delighted to have sKart as our partner in Delhi NCR region to help build out our air logistics business. It …

Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone completed the acquisition of 100 per cent stake at Dighi Port (DPL) for Rs 705 crore. The company had intimated the commencement of this development to stock exchanges on March 6, 2020. DPL, the 12th port to join APSEZ’s string of economic gateways across the eastern and western coast of India would establish the company’s footprint in Maharashtra, the largest contributor to India’s GDP. This would enable APSEZ to service customers in Maharashtra which includes the highly industrial areas and development in the Mumbai & Pune regions. APSEZ plans to invest over Rs 10,000 crore to develop the port into a multi-cargo port with world class infrastructure as well as investing in the development of rail & road evacuation infrastructure for seamless and efficient cargo movement. The company will strengthen and repair existing infrastructure and invest in development of facilities for dry, container, and liquid cargo. DPL will evolve as an alternative gateway to JNPT and will invite and support the development of port-based industries on port land. The development of DPL will lead to further investments across various industries such as consumer appliances, metals, energy, petrochemicals, and chemicals business in Maharashtra and provide a tremendous fillip to the industrial development and growth in Maharashtra. These investments will contribute to employment generation and socio-economic development of the port’s hinterland. As per the terms & requirements of the Resolution Plan, the transfer of concession rights has also been approved by the Maharashtra Maritime Board (‘MMB’) and APSEZ has settled the dues of financial creditors, MMB, and other admitted costs and claims. Karan Adani, CEO and Whole Time Director of APSEZ said, “The successful acquisition of …

Responding to January 2021 export figures, Sharad Kumar Saraf, President, FIEO said that the monthly exports further moved northward towards positive territory with almost all major export category products showing impressive growth with signs of further revival. Positive growth of about 6.16 per cent with US$ 27.45 billion of exports show not only signs of better order booking position but further improvement in coming months and the new fiscal, reiterated President. Effectiveness of the Covid-19 vaccines have also led to bring both life and economy back on growth trajectory with a V-shaped recovery projected not only in world trade but the Indian economy as well. The Union Budget 2021-22 has also rightly put its focus on infrastructure to revive the economy, address the job loss and support the industries providing inputs for infrastructure at a time when it was most needed, added Saraf. A world class infrastructure will go a long way to make our manufacturing and exports competitive besides reducing the logistics cost, he said. FIEO President added that January exports also signals that our traditional and labour-intensive sectors of exports (except apparels, leather, marine products and gems & jewellery) have already passed the most challenging and testing times. Saraf said that the exports of other cereals along with oil meals, iron-ore, cereal preparations and miscellaneous processed items, jute mfg. including floor covering, tobacco, rice, fruits and vegetable, carpet, handicrafts excl. hand-made carpet, spices, ceramic products and glassware, engineering goods, drugs and pharmaceuticals, electronic goods, tea, cashew, plastic and linoleum, mica, coal and other ores, minerals including process, cotton yarn/fabrics/made-ups, handloom products etc., coffee and organic and inorganic chemicals showed either a very high or impressive growth or were …

Hiranandani Group has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding in West Bengal to set up an industrial, logistics and hyper-scale data centre park in the region which is estimated to cross Rs 10,000 crore. The group has signed an MoU with Hindustan Motors to acquire a 100-acre land at Uttarpara, Kolkata, to set up an integrated logistics and hyper-scale data centre park by Hiranandani Group companies GreenBase and Yotta respectively, the company said in a statement. GreenBase will deliver 3 million sq feet of industrial and warehousing space along with essential utilities and support infrastructure built to international standards. Yotta, Hiranandani’s hyper-scale data centre division, will see a development of 6 hyper-connected data centre buildings bringing in 250 MW of cutting edge data centre capacity over the next several years to the state. The first phase of the industrial and logistics park will be up and running by June 2022 and the first data centre building will be ready by June 2023, the company said. “Kicking off this project would not have been possible without the tremendous support of the Government of West Bengal under the leadership of Chief Minister Mamta Banerjee. West Bengal is the gateway to the east. It is an ideal hub for logistics and industrial development with excellent road, rail and riverine connectivity,” said Darshan Hiranandani, Group CEO, Hiranandani Group. “Simultaneously, the data centre business will benefit from the digitisation revolution, the upcoming Silicon Valley at New Town at Rajarhat and excellent fibre connectivity on land and the new submarine cable coming up at Tajpur. By setting up a data centre park in Kolkata, we will not only serve the customers of the state but the …

To further enhance its pharma handling capabilities globally, dnata has added four high-tech ‘cool dollies’ to its Australian cargo fleet, becoming the first air services provider to offer a fully integrated, temperature-controlled cool chain for pharma and perishable shipments in this important market. Offering a closed, temperature-controlled system, the specialised containers will ensure safe and seamless delivery of temperature-sensitive goods, including pharmaceuticals and vaccines, between aircraft and dnata’s state-of-the-art cargo facilities. dnata will operate two cool dollies each at Sydney Airport (SYD) and Melbourne Airport (MEL), providing maximum safety to airline partners and their customers at every stage of the handling process. Dirk Goovaerts, dnata’s Regional CEO for Asia Pacific, said, “We are thrilled to be the first cargo handler in Australia to launch advanced cool dollies in our operations. Our latest investment underlines our commitment to ensuring reliable and safe end-to-end transportation of pharmaceutical products across the supply chain. We stay focussed on providing continual improvements that enhance the safety and security of our customers’ pharma shipments.” Vanessa Orth, Chief Commercial Officer, Sydney Airport, said, “Sydney Airport has played a pivotal role throughout the COVID-19 crisis, facilitating the movement of essential workers, medical supplies, agricultural exports, and thousands of people going and coming home. We applaud dnata for their investment in the resilience of Australia’s pharmaceutical supply chain, an investment which will ensure Sydney Airport continues to play its central role in the nation’s air cargo network.” Shane O’Hare, Chief of Aviation, Melbourne Airport, said, “We congratulate dnata for investing in cool dolly services, which will enable greater movement of temperature-sensitive goods around Australia. The product will certainly add to dnata’s existing cargo capability at Melbourne Airport which is …

LATAM Cargo Group had a positive performance during the 2021 Valentine’s Day season, which, together with Mother’s Day (April and May) represents the peak of the fresh flower export activity. In 2021, the company carried 7 per cent more flowers than in 2020, totaling more than 13,200 tonne. The good figures are due to LATAM Group’s uninterrupted operations in Colombia and Ecuador, despite the big challenge posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of capacity. In fact, the Group has increased its online offering to satisfy the needs of its customers –in this case flower producers– who depend on connectivity and exports to sustain their businesses. For example, during the season that began three weeks before Valentine’s Day –January 18 through February 09– LATAM Group took off some 225 times from Bogota, Medellin and Quito with their loads of roses, spray roses, alstroemeria and gerberas from Colombia, and roses, gypsophila and alstroemeria from Ecuador to the United States. Miami is the main transit destination for fresh flowers and is also one of the world’s largest distribution hubs and home to the cargo operations of LATAM Airlines Group. From here, flowers are distributed primarily towards North America and Europe. Compared to a regular period, in Colombia the company carried 7 per cent more tonne per week during the Valentine’s Day season, successfully serving the demand from the flower sector. In Quito, Ecuador, capacity was added to transport the flower production to Miami, increasing the number of tons carried each week by 7 per cent, and raising capacity to Amsterdam (The Netherlands), the second destination for Ecuadorian flowers. “It is in times of difficulty like the current pandemic that our commitment to …

SpiceJet has launched its first dedicated freight service connecting Vijayawada with other parts of the country. The airline operated its first freight flight SpiceXpress from Vijayawada to Kolkata carrying 15 tonnes of cargo. Speaking on the occasion, G Madhusudana Rao, Vijayawada International Airport Director said that a domestic cargo facility was launched at the old terminal building in June, 2018 and the services commenced in August. About 40 tonnes of cargo is handled per day through Airbus-320 and Boeing 707 in a 200 square metres area. In the last seven months, the terminal has handled a cargo capacity of 400 to 450 tonnes of aqua products like shrimp and fish to other parts of the country. The newly-launched freight service will be operated between Vijayawada and Kolkata thrice a week to transport aqua products from the fish ponds and sea within 200 km radius of Vijayawada. “We are requesting the aqua farmers and traders to make use of the cargo facilities launched from the terminal to export perishable goods from Krishna, Guntur, Prakasam and twin Godavari districts to Kolkata, Mumbai and Surat at affordable prices,” the Airport Director said. He further said that steps are being taken to develop a designated building in an extent of 2,500 square metres for handling exclusive cargo operations along with a cold storage facility. Vijayawada International Airport Director G Madhusudana Rao, along with SpiceJet Regional Manager Ravi Kumar and Shreepa Logistics CEO Rama Rao, launched the facility on the Gannavaram airport terminal premises on Saturday.

Frankfurt Airport (FRA) cargo throughput (comprising airfreight and airmail) rose by 18.1 per cent to 176,266 metric tonnes in January. Despite the ongoing lack of capacity for belly freight (transported on passenger planes), Frankfurt Airport recorded its second-highest January cargo month ever. Factors contributing to the growth in cargo tonnage included the later timing of the Chinese New Year, which is being celebrated in February2021. Last year, this typically low-traffic holiday occurred in January. Aircraft movements at FRA contracted by 63.7 per cent to 13,196 take offs and landings. Accumulated maximum take-off weights (MTOWs) decreased by 54.5 percent to some 1.1 million metric tonnes. The airports in Fraport’s international portfolio reported mixed results for January 2021, but all of them experienced traffic reductions compared to the same month last year. The pandemic situation in the respective airport regions or countries was the primary factor impacting passenger traffic during the reporting month.