Commenting on how COVID-19 has changed the metrics, Saurabh Kumar, CEO, Hyderabad Air Cargo noted, “Airfreight was growing at a very fast pace in Asia-Pacific and particularly in India before COVID-19 happened. Another important thing to note is that in India the bulk of cargo goes via the belly of passenger aircraft and not via dedicated freighter aircrafts. When international flights stopped in the end of the March, we have missed out in the entire belly capacity and the only capacity which was available was freighter. However, in the last three months we have grown significantly as an industry. The freighter capacity which used to be a miniscule 25-30 per cent across the country has more than doubled, primarily on account of several passenger aircrafts getting converted into cargo (P2C) as well more special charters and additional freighters that started coming into India to facilitate the trade. The air cargo industry has seen a very encouraging recovery in the last three months. Having said that, if we compare air cargo with other segments of the industry, we are in a position where we are at least able to see the dreams of complete recovery. The recovery is few quarters away.”

After returning to all-cargo operations in March, American Airlines will fly more than 1,000 cargo-only flights to 32 destinations across the US, South America, Europe, Asia and Australia in September. The airline re-launched cargo-only flights in March, with 20 strategic flights to two key destinations. Since being reintroduced, American’s cargo-only flights, which hadn’t been operated in more than 35 years, have moved more than 45 million pounds of cargo around the world.” “We didn’t have a playbook. We’d never done this before,” said Maulin Vakil, American’s director of cargo revenue at the time. “We began to explore how much cargo we could take if we couldn’t transport passengers.” After exploring options, the group began planning a cargo-only flight from Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) to Frankfurt (FRA) scheduled to take off on March 20. The airline expanded its cargo-only flights to Hong Kong (HKG), Shanghai (PVG), Beijing (PEK) and Seoul (ICN). “We essentially started our own little airline,” said Tom Howard, Manager at American’s integrated operations center. “We had to build this entire out and coordinate how it flows with our scheduled passenger service because, well, we’re a passenger airline.” This September, more than 1,000 scheduled cargo-only flights will be accompanied by more than 1,200 passenger flights also offering cargo services.

For seamless development of various infrastructure projects, the West Bengal government is anticipating to grant industry status to the state’s US$ 20 billion logistics sector. The state is also working on framing a logistics policy and it could require about Rs 1,000 crore to lay the initial groundwork to implement it in the short term. According to the official, “The status of industry will help the logistics sector smoothly develop infrastructure. The conversion of agricultural land to develop logistics related infrastructure will be easier. Getting access to land banks, state funding, incentives and single window support will also be easier.” The authorities have suggested setting up a nodal agency, Logistics Development Council, with representation from both the industry and the government, for implementing the policy. The state is also contemplating to earmark 500 acre of land for logistics development, out of which 100 acre may be brought out from rehabilitated land with multimodal connectivity.

To workout the master plan of providing multi-modal connectivity to various economic zones, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on August 17 chaired a meeting with key cabinet ministers, including Nitin Gadkari (transport), Mansukh Mandaviya (shipping), Piyush Goyal (trade and railway), Nirmala Sitharaman (finance) and Hardeep Singh Puri (aviation). “This is an important endeavour that will boost productivity, infrastructure, economic progress and opportunities for our youngsters,” PM tweeted. The meeting took place after the Prime Minister said that it was necessary to give a new direction to the overall development of the country’s infrastructure and that this integration of the main modes of road, rail, air and river transport was crucial. “It is important to break the era of ‘working in silos’ in infrastructure,” he adds. “We cannot work in silos. We don’t need a situation where in the infrastructure sector the road sector will only work for roads and the rail sector will only work for rail. There is no coordination between the airport and the port which is not desirable,” Modi said on the Independence Day.

Talking about industry’s readiness on working on its own, Aditya Shah, Executive Director, V-Trans India, said, “Working on our own is sort of a reality for logistics and the transport industry. The government body is doing its job but the real essence is, we have to build up our own capability and stand up tall. Eventually, if there is no help in future the question remains how will the business model sustain? We have to figure out a business model that would sustain without help and the larger part is already standing on its own. As an industry, we can collaborate amongst ourselves; have some best practices or hand-holding with each other.” Continuing on the collaboration, he said, “Collaborations are opening up slowly but we still have a long way to go.”

According to Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA), India shipped 12,89,651 MT of seafood worth Rs 46,662.85 crore (US$ 6.68 billion) during 2019-20, largely cushioning the adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Frozen shrimp remained the major export item in terms of quantity and value followed by frozen fish while the USA and China turned out to be the major importers of India’s seafood. MPEDA further informs, “During the FY 2019-20, the export improved in rupee term by 0.16 per cent, but the quantity and US dollar value declined by 7.39 per cent and 0.74 per cent, respectively.” In 2018-19, India had exported 13, 92,559 MT of seafood worth Rs 46,589.37 crore (US$ 6,728.50 million). K S Srinivas, Chairman, MPEDA, said, “India managed to export 12,89,651 MT of seafood, despite the sluggish demand in its major export markets caused by the pandemic, which led to cancellation of several orders, reduced and delayed payments, slowdown of cargo movements and difficulty in getting new orders. The decline in sea catch along the west coast due to reduced fishing days has also been a reason for the shortfall in quantity.” “We missed the 7-billion-dollar target, though not by a fair distance. However, exports are now likely to witness an uptick as lockdowns have been eased globally and there is an increased sale of value added products in retail chains. MPEDA”s vision is to take Indian seafood exports to Rs one lakh crore by 2030,” he adds. Frozen shrimp, which earned Rs 34,152.03 crore (US$ 4,889.12 million), retained its position as the most significant item in the basket of seafood exports, accounting for a share of 50.58 per cent in quantity and 73.21 per …

SpiceJet has announced that the airline is set to induct its first wide-body Airbus A340 cargo aircraft which would primarily be used for transporting cargo goods and essential supplies on long-haul routes including to destinations in Europe, CIS and Africa. The aircraft can carry 35 tonnes of cargo per flight. With the latest induction, SpiceJet will have a dedicated fleet of nine freighter aircraft consisting of five Boeing 737s, three Bombardier Q-400s and one Airbus A340. Ajay Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, SpiceJet, said, “Very soon, an Indian carrier will be proudly operating non-stop cargo services across the globe to destinations in Europe, Africa and CIS countries which till a few months back would have been unthinkable. We are confident that our long-haul cargo flights would further help boost Indian businesses, farmers, pharma companies providing them seamless access to newer markets.”

CargoTalk is all geared up to host the fourth conclave on August 25, 2020 from 10 am to 12:15 pm. The virtual summit is divided into two one-hour sessions and will have eminent speakers from Ministry and trade. The summit will discuss the significance of going contactless in logistics industry and how warehousing industry is withstanding the e-commerce boom, especially in this hour of need. Speakers will include Pawan Kumar Agarwal, IAS, Special Secretary (Logistics), Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, Cyrus Katgara, President, Air Cargo Forum India, V Raju, Senior Vice President – CL – Chemical, Pharma & Food Sector, Avvashya CCI Logistcs (All Cargo Group), Satish Lakkaraju, Chief Commercial Officer, Agility Logistics and John Thomas, Group Director, Realistic Realtors & Reach Promoters and Director at CIRIL (Commercial Real Estate Advisors)

Talking about what government has done or what can we expect from the government to do, Keku Bomi Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS stressed on how CBIC has enabled the faceless and paperless evaluation of our shipments. Considering the two portals that the Ministry of Civil Aviation has rolled out almost two years ago and how ICEDASH has improved the monitoring of customs clearance of imported goods, the government is faster than the private sector in digitisation. He believes, “It is more for us in the industry to keep up with the government rather than asking what the government can do.”

With a total investment of Rs 6.5 crore, Robinsons Global Logistics Solutions has recently set up a new 1,50,000 sq ft warehousing facility. The facility has 25,000 sq ft of temperature controlled area with a spectrum of +4 to -25 degree Celsius at Bhiwandi in Thane district of Maharashtra. This is the first such warehouse of the four such facilities the company plans to set up by the first quarter of 2021 in the country. This warehouse is part of a larger expansion plan for RGL that includes the introduction of value-added services like transport brokerage and document storage, along with the addition of four more warehouses across the country in the coming months. The warehouse is designed to create cost-efficient systems that leverage machine learning and Internet of Things for surveillance and people management.