Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Ltd (“APSEZ”), India’s largest ports and logistics company and part of Adani Group, has received approvals from NCLT Ahmedabad and NCLT Hyderabad for acquiring the remaining 58.1% stake in Gangavaram Port Limited (GPL) through the composite scheme of arrangement. With this stake purchase, GPL will become a 100% subsidiary of APSEZ. Commenting on it, Karan Adani, CEO and Whole-time Director, APSEZ said, “Acquisition of GPL is a key milestone in consolidating our position as India’s largest transport utility and in achieving East Coast & West Coast parity. Gangavaram Port has excellent rail & road network connectivity and is the business gateway to the hinterland spread over eight states. The recent addition of a container handling terminal will enable us to accelerate our growth of cargo volumes”. APSEZ also brings world-class logistics synergies to the table, which will propel Gangavaram Port to a potential cargo volume of 250 MMT. This will boost the pace of industrialization of Andhra Pradesh, added Mr Adani.

Qatar Airways Cargo is stepping up its digitalisation efforts with a revamped cargo customer portal called Digital Lounge. The Digital Lounge platform offers customers several features such as booking, shipment tracking, account management, reporting, and other services online. It offers instant confirmation for general cargo bookings subject to availability and required validations. Qatar Airways Cargo customers can book free sale and allotments with dimensions (excluding BUP). In future, customers will be able to book any product available in the portfolio of Qatar Airways Cargo through the Digital Lounge. The Digital Lounge portal is built on the Salesforce platform and uses Salesforce Customer 360 features integrated with its native experience and analytics platform. The airline said it hoped the new platform will enable customers to retrieve information more quickly, and will no longer have to resort to phone or email communication as in the past. Guillaume Halleux, chief officer cargo at Qatar Airways, said: “Through the Digital Lounge, Qatar Airways Cargo has opted for an omni-channel digital strategy whereby the customers are given a wide variety of choices in how they wish to interact with us.”

Akasa Air, which was launched two months ago is all set to transport domesticated dogs and cats in cabin as well as cargo from November. The carrier will also be starting new routes in the coming weeks, said reports. The airline, which is “well capitalised”, plans to start international services in the second half of 2023 once it has a fleet of 20 planes. Currently, the carrier has 6 aircraft and will have a total of 18 planes by the end of March next year, added media reports. Vinay Dube, Akasa Air Founder and CEO said, “Currently, the carrier has 30 daily flights, will start services from Delhi on Friday. It started operations on August 7. Praveen Iyer, Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer said, “The airline is progressively expanding its network and connecting more cities. From November, domesticated dogs and cats can travel. The bookings in this regard will start from October 15,,” he said in media reports.

According to an official statement released by the Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI), internationally, there is no levy of GST on export air freight and export sea freight. International transportation including local transportation and handling services ancillary to international transportation is zero-rated in Singapore. Similarly, in Australia, international transport of goods including arranging of such services is GST free from the place of export in Australia to a destination outside Australia. When GST was introduced from July 2017, both air freight export and sea freight export segment were taxed. However, after various rounds of representations, the GST Council saw the wisdom in the request for exemption and issued exemptions in respect of services by way of transportation of goods by an aircraft from customs station of clearance in India to a place outside India as well as transportation of goods by a vessel from customs station of clearance in India to a place outside India. This exemption has been extended from time to time and unfortunately, it has expired on September 30, 2022 and has not been further extended causing huge impact on freight forwarders as well as exporters who are already going through serious challenges on account of various developments across the world; increased freight cost; and impending recession. It is also likely to have disastrous consequences on account of cash flow pressure for both freight forwarders and exporters. India is going through a tough period with reports of possible recission in other countries which will affect our exports; energy crisis in other countries which is likely to stop production and affect demand of India’s goods; high international freight rates due to oil pricing. When internationally, most …

To expand partnership, Lessor ACIA Aero Leasing has signed a four freighter conversions deal with DHL Express. DHL Express has agreed with ACIA to acquire and convert a fleet of four ATR 72-500 aircraft into Large Cargo Door (LCD) freighters, said release. South Africa-based Solenta Aviation, which runs the entire West Africa regional fleet on behalf of DHL Express, will operate these aircraft. The first of the four upgraded freighters was converted by Ontario, Canada-based Springer Aerospace, bringing the total number of ACIA aircraft in operation by DHL Express to nine. These aircraft are currently based in DHL hubs in Gabon, Togo, and the Ivory Coast and operated in the Latin American and African markets. The remaining three aircraft are scheduled for delivery between the fourth quarter of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.

Urging the government to end the GST exemption notification, Jaideep Raha, Managing Committee Member, ACAAI and Managing Director at Jetex Ocean Air said, “One word very – disappointing. There should be a permanent exemption to make it economical. The GoI must understand India is still not Germany, Japan, or South Korea. We still export low value products and perishables items. This 18 per cent on air freight and 5 per cent on ocean freight impact will be an impediment to our exports and will greatly upset Balance of Trade. Since US$ and € is all time high thus restricting our Imports.”

Commenting on no extension being given on GST exemption notification, Cyrus Katgara, Partner, Jeena & Company, said, “18 per cent GST on air cargo exports will create global disturbances especially when there are no taxes levied on international freight. Indian exporters are also at a disadvantage with other countries. India’s ranking will go down on ease of doing business. India must be the part of mainstream international business as Indian economy integrates globally. Whereas international rules are concerned, and we must go with the international flow.”

Federation of Freight Forwarders Association of India (FFFAI), in a letter to the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman stated, “If the exemption is not extended for next period, the trade will have to bear a huge cost which in turn will manifold and increase the logistic cost. The brief effect will be as below – 1.Export Air Freight – Services by way of transportation of goods by an aircraft from customs station of clearance in India to a place outside India – Tax rate shall be 18% – 2.Export Ocean Freight – Services by way of transportation of goods by a vessel from customs station of clearance in India to a place outside India – Tax rate shall be 5% 3.Input tax charged on goods (other than on ships, vessels including bulk carriers and tankers) used in supplying the service has not been taken (condition same as for Import freight services). After applicability of GST majority of import consignment are already being booked on CIF basis from abroad and a Indian freight companies who used to contract freight on behalf customer in India are already at the disadvantage since freight is not taxable abroad. The same is the case for Export with levy ability of 5% GST on Ocean Freight and 18% GST on Air Freight on Export consignments, the INCO Terms are likely to change from CIF to FOB. The Freight which is booked from India by Freight Forwarder will be taxable and such export freight booking will convert into INCO Terms FOB where Freight will be arranged to be paid in foreign country where there is no tax on freight. Multinational / Foreign freight forwarding companies will stand to …

Multimodal connectivity with the hinterland is one of the key focus areas which needs to be addressed in order to facilitate the seamless movement of cargo, said Piyush Srivastava, Senior Economic Advisor at the Ministry of Civil Aviation at an event organised by the Foundation for Aviation and Sustainable Tourism on Challenges and Opportunities for Air Cargo for the Decade Ahead today. He added, “We should also address sustainability as an important subject for both aviation and cargo. For this we need to have strong Maintenance, Repair, and Operations (MRO) ecosystem, aircraft manufacturing facilities and equipment, we also need to have leasing capability in the country. Another emerging area is cargo drones – which are set to grow exponentially in the coming years. To achieve this, the industry needs to move forward at fast speed keeping in mind changed consumer behaviour which has changed drastically in the last few years. That’s one of the biggest challenges. I feel, PM’s Gati Shakti Master Plan is the ultimate solution for all the issues and will definitely boost growth of the sector.”

With the National Master Plan for Multimodal connectivity in place, Ahmedabad-headquartered Adani Group is set to give momentum to its logistic business by commissioning six more multimodal logistics parks (MMLPs) in the next two years across five states, including Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Telangana, says reports. “Adani Group is already operating as many as five MMLPs in different parts of the country. We are in the process to commission six more parks – two in Gujarat (Sanand and Ankleshwar), one each at Dadri in UP, Panipat in Haryana, near Rajasthan capital Jaipur and Hyderabad. PM Gati Shakti – Master Plan for Multimodal Connectivity would help us to implement these projects on fast-forward mode,” said Vikram Jaisinghani, managing director and CEO of Adani Logistics (ALL), in reports.