Category Archives: Aviation

According to S Ramakrishna, President, DCBA and Immediate Past Chairman, FFFAI, “We have already witnessed nearly 40 per cent decline in air cargo traffic (both export and import) to and from China owing to the outburst of Coronavirus in that country. Impact on sea cargo is yet to be assessed. Majorly impacted segments are chemicals, electric & electronic items, fertilizers etc, which top the Exim trade basket between the two countries. However, this incidence could also gain for the exporter to enter new markets and on the imports alternate source could be developed.”

Talking about how bad the situation for Indian logistics industry is, Sunil Arora, President, ACAAI, says, “China is a place where production happens on an hourly-basis, for example, if iPhone productions goes down by one hour that affects their capacity and volume on annual basis. Factories have been off for approx. one month now and it’s going to continue for may be next five to six months, and this is a concern. Hopefully, the coronavirus epidemic ends soon, even then the impact on production and thereafter supply chain will take almost five to six months to come back to normalcy. Moreover, if everything opens, we will see an upsurge which will again have an impact on imports and exports. Freight forwarding is one industry that is attached to all industries scenario. Hence, if we see the consequential impact across the industry, sectors dependent on imports or exports from China will bear the worst impact.”

With an interest to strengthen pharma supply chain in the country, GMR Hyderabad International Airport (GHIAL) has entered into an agreement with Agility. “As the operator of India’s first Pharma Zone offering an unbroken cold chain from truck-dock to the airside, Hyderabad Airport has been a strong proponent of collaboration with the industry leaders to help strengthen the pharma supply chain in the country,” said SGK Kishore, CEO, GHIAL. With the new partnership, GHIAL hopes to strengthen the supply chain system in India and pharma cargo sector.

Airports Authority of India (AAI) and its cargo wing AAICLAS will shortly open its perishable cargo centre at Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport, Guwahati. The centre is being built by Assam Industrial Development Corporation (AIDC) and expected to be functional by the end of March 2020. AAI had leased 4050 sq mt of land to AIDC for a period of seven years for establishing center for perishable cargo at Guwahati airport with a capacity to handle 10,000 MT of perishable cargo. The perishable cargo centre has been developed at a total cost of approx Rs20 crore. It will consist of state-of-the-art facilities as a one-stop facilitation center to process the perishable cargo with customs EDI facility and further forward and backward linkage project under TIES (Trade Infrastructure Export Scheme) by positioning airlines, freight forwarders, customs broker house.

With SpiceJet decision to launch air freight services along Chennai–Vizag– Kolkata, Visakhapatnam is set to get its first exclusive cargo flight. The flight which is capable of carrying 20 tonne of air cargo is expected to be launched in mid-February and operate on a daily basis.  The Andhra Pradesh Air Travelers Association (APATA) has been pursuing the introduction of air cargo flight from Vizag for quite some time. The association has also informed that Air India has agreed to cut the cargo rates from Visakhapatnam, as the cargo rates of Air India in Visakhapatnam are higher as compared to those in Hyderabad.

Surat Airport has opened the state-of-the-art domestic cargo terminal (DCT) on January 29, 2020. The terminal has an area of approx. 2,800 sqm out of which 1,400 sqm is the covered space capable of handling 50,000 metric tonne annually. Operated by AAI Cargo Allied and Logistics Services (AAICLAS), the terminal targets to increase cargo movement from 300 metric tonnes per month to more than 1000 metric tonne per month. Keku Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS, comments, “This terminal will cater to the ever-increasing air cargo demand of the south Gujarat region. We are looking at doubling the cargo transport in the next couple of months.”  

SpiceJet has started PO mail delivery service in Jharsuguda, one of the regional airports. Earlier these mails use to come via Bhubaneshwar through flight and then by train which usually takes 2 days to reach Jharsuguda. The new air service enables same day delivery from Delhi. 33 mails and two ordinary letter bags arrived from Delhi through SpiceJet airline at VSS airport, Jharsuguda. Six neighbouring districts; Sundargarh, Sambalpur, Bargarh, Deogarh, Bhawanipatna, including Jharsuguda will be directly benefited and mails would reach same day if booked by Delhi by 10 am. This will help in bringing this region closer to rest of the country.

N Sivasailam, Special Secretary – Logistics, Department of Commerce, Government of India has kindly consented to grace the India Cargo Awards 2019. India Cargo Awards 2019 are scheduled to be held on January 27, 2020 from 7 pm to 10 pm at the Crowne Plaza Greater Noida. Sivasailam is an officer of the 1985 batch of the Indian Administrative Service allotted to Karnataka Cadre. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from Delhi College of Engineering, University of Delhi. He did his Master’s in Business Administration at the Faculty Management Studies, University of Delhi, and Master’s in Social Policy & Planning from the London School of Economics and Post Graduate Diploma in Intellectual Property Rights Law (IPRL) from the National Law School of India University, Bangalore. Prior to this assignment, he served as an Additional Chief Secretary in the Department of Public Enterprises, Government of Karnataka. He has served in the Departments of Health & Family Welfare and Medical Education, Forest, Ecology & Environment Departments of the Government of Karnataka as Principal Secretary.

GMR Hyderabad Aerotropolis (GHAL) has formed a joint venture with ESR Hyderabad 1 (ESR) to develop a 66-acre logistics and industrial park at the Hyderabad airport city. Both the companies, for the aforesaid transaction, have entered into definitive agreements with an equity interest of 70 per cent and 30 per cent respectively in the SPV viz., GMR Logistics Park. The total project outlay would be around Rs550 crore. “This collaboration would set new standards for the warehousing and industrial real estate sector. It would also benefit the burgeoning cargo industry in the region,” said Aman Kapoor, CEO – Airport Land Development, GMR Group.

SF Airlines has launched its second freighter service between Shenzhen and New Delhi. Airlines’ B747-400F, the new route will see two flights per week, providing a weekly round-trip capacity of 400 tonne. The company has added a new flight between Shenzhen and New Delhi in addition to its Shenzhen–Chennai service launched earlier in 2019. ““As the capital of India, New Delhi is an important location for Chinese companies to invest, develop and expand their business in the country,” said, Sam Sun, Head, SF Express India, in adding, “To leverage these advantages, SF Express has launched an all-new direct air freight route to New Delhi to fully penetrate the Indian market and provide comprehensive cross-border logistics coverage.”