Category Archives: Aviation

Reliable Robotics announced a $100 million Series C funding round led by Coatue Management to support its first aircraft certification program and expedite the launch of commercial cargo operations. Coatue joins past investors Lightspeed Venture Partners, Eclipse Ventures, Teamworthy Ventures and Pathbreaker Ventures to bring total fundraising over $133 million. With its airframe independent technology, Reliable’s remotely operated aircraft system is designed to expand safe, flexible and efficient air transportation service to more locations. Reliable Robotics is positioned to unlock access to thousands of underutilized regional and municipal airports in all corners of the country, greatly expanding air transportation options for cargo and eventually passengers. The company’s technology handles all phases of flight including taxi, takeoff, landing and parking, while licensed pilots remotely supervise each flight from a control center. The system has the capability to autoland on smaller airstrips in rural or remote areas without requiring expensive infrastructure to be installed and maintained.

The GMR group, which has interests in the Airports, Power and Transport sector, is beefing up its airport business. The group’s airport business was the second-largest airport developer in the world pre-Covid, based on annual passengers. The airport business has an operational capacity of 94 million passengers right now, with almost as much capacity (85 million) under development. The expansion by the group, whose airports business has attracted investments from French operator Groupe ADP, is being driven by the Delhi and Hyderabad airports. GMR has fully tied up financing for its capital expenditure. This gives it a much-needed headstart against the Adani group, which, after a delay, has started taking over the airports it had won as part of the government’s latest privatisation drive. The Covid period, when traffic is lower and there is slack to expand terminals, is being utilised to ramp up capacity, and scale up businesses such as Duty Free. This is to ensure that when traffic recovers the group has both the capacity and the skill to earn revenues not only to recover the investments, but possibly make profits.

Volocopter’s electric heavy-lift drone VoloDrone conducted its first public flight at ITS World Congress 2021. Together with the international logistics leader DB Schenker, Volocopter, the pioneer of urban air mobility (UAM), demonstrated VoloDrone’s seamless integration into the logistics supply chain with an end-to-end cargo transport demonstration. The partners showed their significant progress together since DB Schenker became a strategic investor of Volocopter in early 2020. The 3-minute test flight took off at 3:02 p.m. at homePORT Hamburg and reached a maximum altitude of 22 meters. For this delivery simulation, the electric heavy-lift utility drone was equipped with a load-box in between its landing gear. First, the demonstration teams secured a Euro-pallet sized load to the box under the VoloDrone, followed by a smooth take-off. After this, the aircraft brought the payload to a DB Schenker Cargo Bike and landed safely. Once the payload was transferred successfully, the Cargo Bike delivered its cargo to the final destination under the area’s park deck, marking the completion of the entirely electric, multimodal last-mile delivery. “This first public VoloDrone flight is a strong sign for Volocopter´s leading position in the UAM industry. We are the only UAM company offering solutions for passengers and goods that are flying fully scaled and publicly around the world,” says Florian Reuter, Volocopter CEO. “Our VoloDrone will make existing logistics processes more robust, efficient, and sustainable. DB Schenker is an invaluable partner in our endeavor to untap the massive potential of our VoloDrone’s logistics use cases.”

FedEx Express has launched a new B777 freighter service between Europe and Japan as demand from the Asia Pacific market continues to boom. The four-times-per-week flight will depart from Paris Charles-de-Gaulle (CDG) Airport and fly directly to Kansai International Airport in Osaka. Additionally, one day a week, a flight will operate CDG to Singapore Changi Airport, before travelling on to Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport. The company said that the additional flights come after it reported a growth in e-commerce parcel volume by more than $1bn year over year out of Asia and Europe. Karen Reddington, president of FedEx Express Europe, said: “Online retail sales in APAC generated approximately $2.45trn in 2020 and with research suggesting e-commerce sales in APAC are expected to almost double by 2025, it is crucial that European businesses can easily and reliably access the growth potential this region offers.

Etihad Cargo, the cargo and logistics arm of the Etihad Aviation Group, has revamped the etihadcargo.com portal to provide customers with a heightened and intuitive online experience. The new-look website includes the introduction of quicker booking processes and streamlined flows, a personalised dashboard, recommendations, and dynamic pricing. Following customer feedback, the site also now incorporates a new dynamic map of the carrier’s global network which provides detailed information on Etihad Cargo teams and its global network outstation capabilities. Migrating to a customer-centric platform has cut the time customers take to complete a booking from more than two minutes previously to less than 45 seconds, equating to only 12 clicks, compared 23 needed before. New features such as requesting shipping quotes, booking ad-hoc prices which have been negotiated offline and booking shipments based on arrival timelines have been introduced to streamline the user experience. Customers will also have the ability to create and manage booking templates based on previous purchases. “With a fresh look and feel incorporating key features requested by customers, the site’s entire user experience has been enriched to provide improved response time and functionality across customers’ booking journeys,” explained Martin Drew, SVP Sales and Cargo at Etihad Aviation Group.

dnata,has partnered with Gather AI, a US-based technology start-up, and launched autonomous drones in its warehouses at Dallas Fort Worth International Airport (DFW) in the USA. The aim is to digitize acceptance and warehouse inventory processes by monitoring shipments with 99.8 percent accuracy. Gather AI’s software enables the drones to map the environment, collect inventory data, count cases, measure temperature, and read barcodes using only their cameras, without the need for any additional active infrastructure. The drones are paired to a tablet device providing live inventory data. The collected data can be viewed directly on the tablet or the web, via a user-friendly application.

Delta recently shipped its 4 millionth COVID-19 vaccine dose from the U.S. to Colombia. As a part of the critical supply chain, Delta is supporting global efforts to end the pandemic and reconnect the world. “I was born in Colombia but have lived in the U.S. for sixteen years, and my parents live in Bogota, so these shipments are incredibly important for me,” said Marcela Friedrich, Regional Field Operations Manager, Delta Cargo. “I feel that I am part of the solution and that I am helping to get my native country, and its economy, back to a new normal.” Once the vaccines arrive in Bogota, Delta Cargo works with a freight company to ensure they are safely delivered where they are needed most, said Carolina Vernanza, Delta’s Airport and Cargo Manager in Bogota. “With over 50 million people living in Colombia, the arrival of 4 million COVID-19 vaccines is a major boost and will really help Colombians to get closer to the country’s vaccination goals.”

DSV has added Shanghai Pudong to its B747F Globetrotter air cargo charter service after initially avoiding the airport because of congestion at the facility. It would operate a flight once a week between Istanbul, which connects with Liege, and the Chinese airport. “We have added an additional stop to the route in PVG as the airport’s ground handling operations are improving after recent Covid-19 outbreaks,” DSV said. The service will also continue to call at CGO, while offering links across the Atlantic to Chicago Rockford and Viracopos. DSV has run a temporary charter operation in the past, but the Globetrotter service is by Turkey-based ACT Airlines under a year-long contract.

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (BLR Airport; www.bengaluruairport.com) has emerged as the No.1 Airport in the Country for perishable shipments. According to Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), BLR Airport has processed 48,130 Metric Tonnes of perishables in the Financial Year 2020-21, accounting for 31% of India’s total perishable shipments. In the process, BLR Airport has emerged as the leading Airport for exports of poultry products and flowers during the same period. It processed 28,182 Metric Tonnes (MT) of poultry products and 1,296 MT of flowers. The perishables, which also included vegetables and fruits, was carried by 24 airlines to 46 international destinations. Doha was the top destination, followed by Singapore, London and Muscat.

Ethiopian Airlines has signed Codeshare and Interline Agreement with AccessRail to widen connectivity options for its passengers destined to Western Europe, United Kingdom, Scandinavian, Japan and Canada. The agreement avails AccesRails’ wide rail destinations to passengers of Ethiopian Airlines through seamless connectivity with all journey segments contained on a single Ethiopian Airlines ticket. Regarding the partnership, Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde GebreMariam said, “I am glad that we have entered into such a monumental agreement with AccessRail, the world’s leading provider of air-rail intermodal solutions. Each year, we are growing in terms of customer service excellence through collaboration with key partners across the globe. As rail travel is becoming popular, especially when traveling regionally or locally, our collaboration with the worlds renowned flight and rail connection provider helps our customers access extra convenience and better connectivity options. In view of expanding our service to markets where Ethiopian has no direct operations to, our partnership with rail services is a great strategic move in enhancing our customer service. I hope the success of the partnership between AccesRail and Ethiopian would be felt throughout our customers.”