Celebi Airport Services India Pvt. Ltd. has been appointed by Saudi Airlines as its Ground Handling Agent at Rajiv Gandhi International Airport Hyderabad. The flight was welcomed by Çelebi team in presence of the carrier’s station management. “Thank you Saudi Airlines for trusting Çelebi and expanding our business partnership to this new station. We look forward to a successful collaboration,” said Celebi’s official Linkedin Post. Celebi India also recently bagged ground-handling contract at The Chennai International Airport and has started fulfilling the requirements to start the services. Celebi will provide complete ground handling support to scheduled and non-scheduled airlines at domestic and international terminals.

Global air cargo demand has surpassed pre-pandemic levels for the first time in eight months, according to the International Air Transport Association (IATA). IATA released data for February 2023, which showed that air cargo demand rose above pre-pandemic levels by 2.9 per cent. Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometres (CTKs), fell 7.5 per cent compared to February 2022, which was half the rate of decline seen in the previous two months. However, international operations saw an 8.3 per cent decline in demand. Available cargo tonne-kilometres (ACTK) in February 2023 increased by 8.6 per cent compared to February 2022, reflecting the addition of belly capacity. International belly-capacity grew by 57 per cent in February year-over-year (YoY), reaching 75.1 per cent of the 2019 (pre-pandemic) capacity, as per the data by IATA. The operating environment had several factors to note, including the global new export orders component of the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI), which continued to increase in February, indicating that demand for manufactured goods is growing. Although global goods trade decreased by 1.5 per cent in January, it was a slower rate of decline than the previous month of -3.3 per cent. Additionally, the Consumer Price Index for G7 countries decreased from 6.7 per cent in January to 6.4 per cent in February, while inflation in producer (input) prices reduced by 2.2 percentage points to 9.6 per cent in December. In terms of regional performance, Asia-Pacific airlines saw their air cargo volumes decrease by 6.0 per cent in February 2023 compared to the same month in 2022. However, this was a significant improvement compared to January (-19.0 per cent). North American carriers posted a 3.2 per cent decrease in cargo …

Green Planet Logistics, India’s first LNG-fueled heavy trucking logistics company, has announced the deployment of its trucks at UltraTech Cement’s bulk terminal in Pune. UltraTech is making strides in its commitment to sustainability and decarbonisation of its operations with this second deployment of GreenLine’s LNG-powered fleet of trucks, after the first deployment at its Awarpur Cement Works near Nagpur. The use of LNG trucks is a significant step towards achieving the company’s sustainability targets. This development underscores UltraTech’s commitment to scaling up its LNG fleet at its plants across the country in the coming months. “At UltraTech, we are dedicated to creating a sustainable future, and we are fully committed to collaborating with our partners and stakeholders to achieve our goal of a cleaner environment. Our association with GreenLine is a step forward on our ongoing efforts to decrease emissions, enhance energy efficiency,” Tanmay Pradhan, AVP Logistics at UltraTech Cement, said. Greeline said besides reducing carbon dioxide emission by 28 per cent LNG trucks significantly reduce other dangerous emissions- SOx emissions by upto 100 percent. NOx emissions by upto 59% and particular matter by upto 91%. Anand Mimani CEO, Greenline said, “We are proud to be again be the chosen green mobility partners for UltraTech Cement in their endeavor to reduce carbon emissions from their heavy trucking.

Celcius Logistics has successfully completed its Series A funding by raising the total amount of INR 100 Cr, led by IvyCap Ventures. As part of its Series A funding, the company earlier raised INR 35 Cr, from their existing investors – Mumbai Angels, Supply Chain Labs, Endurance Capital, VCats, Huddle, Eaglewings Ventures (EVAN), and others. This marks Celcius Logistics as the first start-up in the cold supply chain sector to achieve such rapid growth and establish a niche in the cold chain industry within a short period of time. The company aims to utilize the funds for tech innovations to solve the fragmented nature of the cold supply chain and reduce the wastage in perishables thereby building towards a sustainable future. Speaking about the journey and plans for the company, Founder and CEO, Mr. Swarup Bose, said, “We are grateful to our investors for their unwavering support and belief in the vision and mission of Celcius. From our humble beginnings with just 5 employees during the COVID pandemic, we have become a leading player in the cold supply chain industry, with a team of 125 dedicated employees and an operational presence in 350+ cities across the country. We have recently launched smart solutions catering to the specific needs of last-mile deliveries and hyperlocal cold-chain transportation. Having raised more funds, we aim to further expand our operations and build a seamless, and truly unbroken cold supply chain, ensuring food security for all. We are also working towards introducing smart tech innovations to address challenges in the pharma sector. Our goal is to work towards a sustainable future, by taking steps to reduce wastage of perishables through innovative tech solutions and creating …

DP World welcomed the newly launched weekly Malabar Service, at its state-of-the-art International Container Trans-shipment Terminal (ICTT). The new service will be operated by Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) and will have 4 vessels of 2400 TEU capacity. “Malabar” service’s maiden vessel, M.V. MSC Krittika, reached DP World’s terminal in Cochin on 6th April 2023. The new service will provide direct and seamless connectivity between Cochin, Mundra, Karachi, Jebel Ali, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait (with Shuwaikh Port), Qatar (with Hamad Port) and Sri Lanka (Colombo). This will create a faster, stable, and reliable service for the traders across the India-Middle East corridor and leverage the strong partnerships between the two regions for boosting economic growth. Commenting on this new service, Praveen Joseph, CEO DP World Cochin said, “We are committed to expanding trade routes through more direct services and are focused on continuously improving our operations to serve our customers better. The newly launched Malabar service by our valued customer MSC, will play an integral role in strengthening the bilateral trade between India and the Middle East countries. In addition, this service will enable Indian exporters have a deeper and wider access to the markets in the Middle East region.” The Malabar Service will be the 3rd weekly service sailing for the Middle East region from DP World Cochin. The port terminal is capable of handling post panamax ships and in February 2023, the 605-metre-long terminal reached a monumental milestone of successfully handling 6 million TEUs since its inception in 2011.

Gateway Distriparks is currently in the Inland Container Depot (ICDs) and Container Freight Stations (CFSs) business and we have CTO license where we run our own freight trains pan India. Currently we have five CFSs and five ICDs. We have another ICD under construction in Jaipur,” says Samvid Gupta, Joint Managing Director, Gateway Distriparks Ltd. “With this we will have a network of eleven container locations across India. After this we have plans to come up with two more ICDs in the next two years and in the private space, then we will be the largest player in this segment.” Talking about the investment, he adds, “We have overall done 1500 crore investment since the inception of the company. This includes the investment in Snowman Logistics and buy out of a private equity Blackstone in Gateway Rail Freight Ltd. The company has now merged into Gateway Distriparks Ltd. Going forward, we have plans to invest 500 crore CAPEX which we had announced last year. Out of that 200 crore have been invested. The rest of 300 crore will come in the form of two new ICDs, up-gradation of existing facilities and there will be an increase in the fleet as well as rakes.” Talking about the expansion plans, Gupta shares, “We want to increase our rail network. Right now we are doing 95% of our business on EXIM and 5% on domestic. Going forward, we want to expand on the domestic sector. This will happen in next 2-3 years. We are looking forward to expand in UP, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh for our next projects.”

The rise in demand for cargo movement across the country mainly fuelled by the growth of e-commerce and expansion of electronics manufacturing, has led to Boeing taking the decision to increase the fleet size of cargo aircraft in the country from the current 15 to 80 by 2041, said reports. “India experienced a surge in cargo demand during the pandemic, and we expect this to continue. Firstly, the growth in e-commerce is fuelling demand for narrow body conversions. Additionally, the expansion of Indian electronics manufacturing, particularly in higher-value manufacturing, is a significant driver of cargo demand,” said reports online. According to Airports Authority of India data, operational airports handled 3.14 million tonne of freight in 2021-22, which is 94% of freight handled in 2017-18. Carriers like IndiGo, SpiceJet, and Air India Express are looking at increasing their freighter fleet size. SpiceJet, in fact has hived off its cargo and logistics business SpiceXpress into a separate entity — SpiceXpress and Logistics — beginning this month. Boeing’s World Air Cargo Forecast 2022 has forecast doubling of cargo traffic and a 60% increase in the world’s freighter fleet by 2041.

Gati Ltd., an Allcargo Group company has launched a state-of-the-art and tech-enabled surface transhipment centre and distribution warehouse (STCDW) at Bhiwandi on the outskirts of Mumbai. Spread over an area of over 1.48 lakh sq. ft. the mega STCDW is a Grade A warehouse observing the highest level of construction quality, advanced technologies and a skilled and trained workforce to offer its customers the expertise of express cargo distribution operations, supply chain visibility, reduced dwell time and time definite deliveries. With a workforce strength of 276 people, the Mumbai mega distribution hub is a terminus for Mumbai and Navi Mumbai, to cater to short haul or regional distribution as well as consolidate-sort-dispatch of long-haul loads for the rest of the country. The Mumbai hub has been designed in compliance with the green norms and is equipped with built-to-suit technology-enabled warehouses of global standards and advanced features and material handling facilities along with integrated warehousing and distribution mechanisms and superior safety features. Battery operated hand pallet trolleys have been deployed at the facility to ensure operational efficiency. The Steel pallets instead of plastic or wooden pallets are being used at the facility keeping the environment sustainability in focus. The STCDW has also planned to have solarization facility which will generate 150 KW of power. An AI-powered round-the-clock tracking system at the facility offers real-time visibility of the cargo movements Adarsh Hegde, Managing Director, Gati Ltd. said, “The launch of super hub near Mumbai is a part of the Allcargo Group’s core vision to play an enabling role in the India growth. As India has emerged as a bright spot in the world economy, we are strengthening our end-to-end logistics delivery service …

Boeing has reportedly resumed with the delivery of B767 Freighters, after a pause due to quality issues affecting commercial and military versions of the wide-body jets. The US manufacturer on April 5 confirmed its deliveries of the type have resumed. Cirium fleets data, however, shows that Boeing delivered a 767-300ER freighter to US package-delivery giant FedEx on March 24. Boeing’s 767 delivery pause became evident early last month after the company said it was working to address what it called a “quality issue” affecting its two remaining in-production 767 variants. Those include cargo-configured 767-300ER freighters and 767-based KC-46 military re-fuelling tankers. “Through Boeing’s standard process, a quality issue was identified on some 767/KC-46 Tanker components,” Boeing said in a statement recently. “We are continuing to work through our process with our supplier, regulator and customers to resolve the issue,” the statement added. Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Stan Deal said last week that the problem involved a “paint adhesion issue”, according to a Reuters report.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for February 2023 global air cargo markets showing that air cargo demand rose above pre-pandemic levels. Global demand, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), fell 7.5% compared to February 2022 (-8.3% for international operations). This was half the rate of annual decline seen in the previous two months (-14.9% and -15.3% respectively). February demand for air cargo was 2.9% higher than pre-pandemic levels (February 2019)—the first time it has surpassed pre-pandemic levels in eight months. Capacity (measured in available cargo tonne-kilometers, ACTK) was up 8.6% compared to February 2022. The strong uptick in ACTKs reflects the addition of belly capacity as the passenger side of the business continues to recover. International belly-capacity grew by 57.0% in February year-over-year, reaching 75.1% of the 2019 (pre-pandemic) capacity. Several factors in the operating environment should be noted: The global new export orders component of the manufacturing PMI, a leading indicator of cargo demand, continued to increase in February. China’s PMI level surpassed the critical 50-mark indicating that demand for manufactured goods from the world’s largest export economy is growing. Global goods trade decreased by 1.5% in January; this was a slower rate of decline than the previous month of -3.3%. The Consumer Price Index for G7 countries decreased from 6.7% in January to 6.4% in February. Inflation in producer (input) prices reduced by 2.2 percentage points to 9.6% in December (last available data). ”The story of air cargo in February is one of slowing declines. Year-on-year demand fell by 7.5%. That’s half the rate of decline experienced in January. This shifting of gears was sufficient to boost the overall industry into positive territory (+2.9%) compared to …