Category Archives: Aviation

Air Methods announced the launch of Spright, a newly formed drone solution, designed to help improve healthcare access and minimize supply challenges. Collaborating with Wingcopter, an industry-leading German drone manufacturer, Spright is creating a drone-based, healthcare-specific delivery network across the United States. As a result of the nation’s efforts to keep healthcare costs down, Americans are impacted by a lack of immediate or timely access to healthcare resources. When these shortages impact the availability of blood products, medicines, diagnostics or small medical devices, the consequences can be dire. The solution is a flexible, rapid distribution network designed with 21st-century technology.

Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) is set to open up rare industrial leasing space on Brisbane’s northside, with the development of a new warehouse and distribution facility within the successful Export Park precinct. BAC executive general manager commercial, Martin Ryan said the speculative development will meet growing demand for warehouse in South East Queensland. “This is one of a series of developments that will form part of our airport city. The next decade will see exponential growth at BNE with more than $5 billion invested across a range of projects including a third terminal and multi modal transport options to better connect BNE to South East Queensland’s major economic hubs. “From an imports and exports perspective, fresh produce suppliers in particular are seeking sites that are well-connected to the USA and major Asian ports. This gives Brisbane Airport a strategic advantage.”

Japan Airlines has partnered with Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) in Liege to provide cargo handling and ramp transportation for its new weekly Boeing 747 freighter flight from the Belgian airport to Tokyo. In a separate development, Japan Airlines has also extended its offline handling agreement with WFS at Brussels Airport, which sees WFS working closely with the airline’s cargo GSSA partner, J-Air, to coordinate road transport connections for Japan Airlines’ flights from Paris, Frankfurt, Amsterdam and London. WFS has also been appointed by Japan Airlines to handle a series of all-cargo flights ex Brussels Airport to Osaka this summer carrying Covid vaccines. “We are very happy to expand JAL’s European partnership with WFS, which responds well to our requests, such as for the high quality handling of vaccines in Brussels and our requirements for time definite handling of large volumes in Liege,” said Tatsusuke Osakabe, the airline’s regional manager cargo and mail, France, Spain and Belgium.

Close on the heels of the announcement of Uzbekistan Airways announcing Aeroprime as its Passenger Sales Agent; comes an additional announcement of Aeroprime being given the mantle of the Cargo Sales Agent as well for India. Aeroprime’s mandate will be to look at the holistic cargo and passenger sales channels for the airline and will responsible for the airlines’ cargo sales, operations, customer service apart from passenger sales, reservations, marketing and other associated services. The twin appointments demonstrate the positive intent of Uzbekistan Airways to the Indian market and its commitment to scale up its business and brand awareness in India through close cooperation with Aeroprime.

Allcargo Logistics Ltd., India’s largest integrated logistics solutions provider, announced that it’s wholly owned subsidiary Allcargo Belgium NV. (Operating ECU Worldwide network), a global multi-modal logistics major, has signed a definitive Joint Venture agreement with Nordicon Group, the market leader in Nordics in LCL and rail consolidation. ECU Worldwide will hold a 65% share, while the balance of 35% will be held by the present owners of Nordicon. With this strategic investment, ECU Worldwide will now be a market leader with a near 40% market share of the less-than-container-load (LCL) business in the Nordic region. Shashi Kiran Shetty, Chairman, Allcargo Logistics, ECU Worldwide, and Gati Ltd., said, “The partnership with Nordicon is in line with our vision of consolidating our market leadership and working with entrepreneurial teams to expand into new territories who share our vision for digital innovation for the logistics sector. Nordicon is led by a strong and capable team, and we are very pleased to welcome them into the larger ECU Worldwide family. This partnership is a great way to scale the global business and better serve customers.”

DHL Express successfully delivered the first batch of 1.5 million Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine doses to Thailand. From door-to-door in just three days, DHL Express flew the vaccines in thermal packaging and subsequently arranged for it to be sent directly to a designated warehouse in Thailand. The arrival of 1.5 million doses, part of the US donation to Southeast Asian countries, aims to help Thailand and the region accelerate their vaccination programs and provide equitable access to immunization as to keep their populations safe, and ensure that their economies can recover quickly. “We are deeply grateful for the trust that our customers have placed in us in handling this precious cargo. It marks another milestone in combating the spread of Covid-19, assisting the country’s recovery and protecting healthcare professionals on the frontline from Covid-19 infection. We are proud to leverage our capabilities and network to transport this life-saving cargo in accordance with the stringent logistics requirements to get through the pandemic,” said Herbert Vongpusanachai, managing director at DHL Express Thailand and Head of Indochina.

Royal Cargo, one of the leading logistics service providers in the Philippines, recently inaugurated its newest facility, the vaccine depot in Parañaque City, Philippines. This new storage serves as a sizeable addition to the country’s fight against COVID-19. The vaccine depot is a $1million investment that aims to provide a pharma-grade storage facility for COVID-19 and other types of available vaccines. Parañaque City Mayor Edwin Olivarez and Representative Eric Olivarez graced the inaugural ceremony of the new depot located at the Royal Cargo headquarters in Paranaque City. In his special message, Mayor Olivarez thanked the Royal Cargo management and said, “It is a great help in our country, as we face the pandemic, (the cold storage facility), will store the needed vaccines by every Filipino citizen not only from the City of Paranaque but the whole nation of the Republic of the Philippines.” The vaccine depot is strategically located near the NAIA airport for fast and easy transfer of vaccines to and from the airport.

The demand to transport global vaccination, consumer good are increasing and companies are looking for alternative transport solutions as the sea freight as well as on the Iron Silk Road market are tight. Despite capacity constraints in air freight, cargo-partner offers its customers weekly charter flights from Asia to Europe and has recently extended its successful charter program. In addition, further destinations have been added to the existing network. The resurgence of the global economy is in full swing and industrial production is picking up again. Private consumption in particular, but also the automotive, high-tech and retail sectors are considered drivers of this development. To help customers maintain their supply chains, cargo-partner has been offering regular charter services from Hong Kong to Budapest with two departures per week since spring 2020 (only one departure per week during the summer months). In response to increasing customer demand, the transport and logistics provider has now extended its scheduled charter services between Asia and Europe until the end of the year. To complement this high-demand service, cargo-partner has also introduced weekly charter flights from Frankfurt to Zhengzhou and back, starting in June 2021.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) released data for global air cargo markets for June showing a 9.9% improvement on pre-COVID-19 performance (June 2019). This pushed first half-year air cargo growth to 8%, its strongest first half performance since 2017 (when the industry posted 10.2% year-on-year growth). As comparisons between 2021 and 2020 monthly results are distorted by the extraordinary impact of COVID-19, unless otherwise noted, all comparisons to follow are to June 2019 which followed a normal demand pattern. • Global demand for June 2021, measured in cargo tonne-kilometers (CTKs*), was up 9.9% compared to June 2019. • Regional variations in performance are significant. North American carriers contributed 5.9 percentage points (ppts) to the 9.9% growth rate in June. Middle East carriers contributed 2.1 ppts, European airlines 1.6 ppts, African airlines 0.5 ppts and Asia-Pacific carriers 0.3 ppts. Latin American carriers did not support the growth, shaving 0.5 ppts off the total. “Air cargo is doing brisk business as the global economy continues its recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. With first-half demand 8% above pre-crisis levels, air cargo is a revenue lifeline for many airlines as they struggle with border closures that continue to devastate the international passenger business. Importantly, the strong first-half performance looks set to continue,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General.

Volga-Dnepr Airlines has played an essential part in the implementation of the large-scale Omani Oil and Gas project with a smooth and seamless delivery of two gigantic oil well rigs to the capital of Oman. The complex delivery for two advanced automated well service rigs, weighing almost 120 tons, was accomplished in partnership with Pentagon Freight Services Canada, who engaged Volga-Dnepr for a timely and efficient logistics solution to meet the end-user’s stringent delivery time whilst overcoming many challenging aspects of loading and required detailed and complex computer modelling to ensure they were safely loaded for transportation. The six-leg flight, lasting five days, was organised from Calgary, Canada to Muscat, Oman aboard one of Volga-Dnepr’s modernised An-124-150 which has an extended payload carrying up to 150 tonnes including loading equipment. Adrian Pruden, vice-president of Pentagon Freight Services Canada praised Volga-Dnepr and their operations and flight crew for the smooth seamless operation. “Pentagon and Highwood Technologies were very pleased and fortunate to work alongside such industry experts to properly plan and execute such a time sensitive project. Another well executed job by Volga-Dnepr and we look forward to the next one!”