Category Archives: Aviation

CargoAi has announced that Air Canada Cargo has selected its eBooking and eQuote platform to accelerate eBooking adoption with freight forwarders. “We’re thrilled to be announcing the partnership between Air Canada Cargo and CargoAi,” says Petot, CEO of CargoAi. “Both organisations share ambitious growth plans in the post pandemic months and years to come, as well as a relentless focus on the customer experience. As such we are looking forward to leveraging this alignment in vision and strategy and bring the best digital booking experience to our joint customers,” he added.

Industry veteran Keku Bomi Gazder, former CEO of AAI Cargo Logistics & Allied Services was honoured with prestigious ‘Industry Ambassador of the Year’ award at the recently held India Cargo Awards, India’s topmost Supply chain awards, which helps to create a platform to recognise those behind the success of the cargo and logistics industry. Gazder said, “I would like to thank India Cargo Awards for organising this event after a gap of two years and for honouring me. It is always a pleasure to be recognised at such forums and it always feels wonderful to meet the industry stakeholders in person than virtual meetings.”

Alpine Air Express, which provides air cargo services to smaller communities in the western U.S. for customers such as FedEx, UPS, and the U.S. Postal Service has acquired Omaha, Nebraska-based Suburban Air Freight to support growing demand for e-commerce services. The deal positions Alpine Air Express, one of the largest regional air cargo carriers in the U.S., to begin flying for DHL Express and build on its expansion effort. Alpine Air operates a fleet of 50 turboprop aircraft — 35 twin-engine Beechcraft 1900D, 14 smaller Beechcraft 99 and a King Air 200 — that transport mail packages and other time-sensitive cargo in Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, Idaho, California, and Utah.

With the global supply chain operations steadily gaining momentum in the past couple of years, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport’s (CSMIA) air cargo witnessed a fruitful year in terms of EXIM (export and import) movements in FY22. With a total of 5,56,900 Metric Tonnes (MT) of overall cargo facilitated in FY22, CSMIA’s air cargo observed a rise of close to 30% in movement as compared to FY21. Where international cargo volumes grew by 26% whereas domestic cargo volumes were up by 40% over FY 21. The total import of 260,600 MT and export of 296,300 MT of cargo resulted in CSMIA’s overall share of contribution to the global cargo movements.

DHL Express last week launched an air freight route connecting Shenzhen in the Guangdong province of southern China with Leipzig in Germany. With a weekly freight capacity of more than 500 metric tonnes, cargo airline Aero-Logic will be responsible for services in the route, with six weekly round trips made by a Boeing 777 all-cargo aircraft, DHL Express said. The new route can better meet the strong aviation logistics market demand in Shenzhen and its surrounding areas, and further promote economic and trade ties between South China and Europe, Shenzhen Baoan International Airport was quoted as saying by official Chinese media. The company had launched an international air cargo route linking Shenzhen and Los Angeles in October last year. It operates more than 30 international air cargo routes from the Shenzhen gateway.

dnata has inaugurated a new, state-of-the-art cargo centre at London Heathrow airport (LHR). Part of the company’s ‘dnata City East’ complex, the bespoke facility further increases dnata’s capacity at LHR, ensuring continued smooth handling of a broad range of goods amid rapidly increasing demand for reliable and safe air cargo services in the UK. The ground services provider’s expansion makes dnata City East comfortably the largest off-site cargo handling operation at the UK’s largest commercial aviation hub. The new, 10,500 sq mt facility (‘Phase II’) was designed to operate in conjunction with dnata City East’s existing 22,500 sq mt facility (‘Phase I’) which opened in September 2019.

Menzies Aviation has doubled the number of airports where it supports LOT Polish Airlines with ground and air cargo services. The new five-year contract covers 12 airports across the airline’s global network, including key hubs at Chicago and Budapest. New airports where Menzies will start supporting LOT include Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), Toronto Pearson International Airport (YYZ), Iasi International Airport (IAS), Oslo Airport (OSL) and Bucharest Henri Coandă International Airport (OTP).

Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) announced winners of the ‘BIAL Genie Hackathon’ in collaboration with Microsoft. Over 11,500 teams comprising developers and data scientists from across India participated in this challenge to design innovative solutions using Microsoft Azure services. The hackathon sought to unearth new innovations and solutions that will improve the end-to-end passenger experience at BLR Airport. Team Reboot Rebels emerged as the grand winner of the hackathon with their innovative application ‘Fly Ezy’ winning INR 1.5 lacs as cash reward.

The Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations in India (FFFAI) has announced its 24th Biennial Convention of the Federation to be held from August 12 to 14, 2022 at ITC Grand Chola in Chennai with the theme ‘Logistics – Reshape, Embrace and Surge in The Digital Era.’ The announcement was made during 4th Executive Meeting of FFFAI held on March 23, 2022 in Dubai. Elaborating on the 24th Biennial Convention, FFFAI Chairma, Shankar Shinde informed that the Convention would focus on innovative logistics embracing the digital era for surging ahead. FFFAI Convention is an opportunity for members to participate and network on one common platform with more than 450 delegates.

Air France-KLM announced its decision to convert into a firm order the Letter of Intent it signed in December 2021 for the acquisition of four Airbus A350F full freighter aircraft – with purchase rights for an additional four aircraft. These aircraft will be operated by Air France and be based at Paris-Charles de Gaulle airport, the airline’s global hub, equipped with a state-of-art 14,000 square meters cargo terminal. These aircraft will increase Air France’s cargo capacity, which currently consists of two Boeing 777F, supplementing the belly capacity of the airline’s 100+ wide-body passenger aircraft.