Category Archives: Aviation

Air cargo is a multi decade industry but what we have achieved in last four months is many times of what we have achieved in the last 4-5 decades, says, Saurabh Kumar, CEO, Hyderabad Air Cargo at CargoTalk’s third digital conclave. He says, “Last four months have been a great time for us to think and innovate. If we look at digitalisation, air cargo industry has started talking about new initiatives to reduce paper and to digitalise the processes, four to five years back. However, the process of adoption has been slow. If we compare ourselves with other industries as well, air cargo has been slightly slow in terms of adopting technologies.” “We started thinking about digitisation in last four months when confinement has not left us with any other option,” adds Kumar.

Calling digitisation an enabler and not a revenue generator, Keku Bomi Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS, says, at CargoTalk’s third digital conclave, “It is a value add to our industry which is long due. We are the land of producing digitisation and yet we are not 100 per cent digitised. It seems to be a bit of a challenge to understand why we are not moving into a 100 per cent at least into an e-airway bill mode.” He continues, “We need to think even beyond paperless or digitisation and that is to do with being contactless; which means less interaction in the physical world.” Gazder believes that the pandemic seems is an opportunistic moment for us to look at digitisation seriously.

The third edition of CargoTalk digital conclave will begin today at 10 am till 12:15 pm. There will be two sessions each of one-hour duration, which will lay emphasis on re-engineering the future. Experts from air cargo and road logistics will share their views. Panelists for first session titled ‘Digitalisation: Building and Enabling Confidence’ (10am-11am) will be Saurabh Kumar, CEO, GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo, Amar More, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions and Keku Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS. For the second session, titled ‘The Road ahead – Driving to Success’ (11:15am-12:15pm), there will be Chander Agarwal, Managing Director, TCI Express, Aditya Shah, Executive Director, V-Trans India and Ashok Goyal, Managing Director, BLR Logistiks.

The third edition of CargoTalk digital conclave is all set to be held tomorrow, Tuesday, July 7 with a focus on how digitalisation building and enabling confidence. Speakers will include Saurabh Kumar, CEO, GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo, Amar More, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions, Keku Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS. The session between 10:00 am to 11:00 am will cover subjects such as practices the industry has learnt from COVID-19 experience, technology solutions which are the need of the hour for the industry, etc.

In order to reduce the logistics cost of air carriage, Vandana Aggarwal, Sr Economic Advisor, Ministry of Civil aviation (MoCA), requested Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport, Highways and MSME, at the webinar held by Domestic Air Cargo Agents Association of India (DACAAI), to recommend to bring air turbine fuel (ATF) under the ambit of the goods and services tax (GST). She informs fuel accounts for 40 per cent cost of aircraft operation. Bringing fuel in the GST regime will reduce the logistics cost of air carriage considerably. MoCA has facilitated the cargo operators in addressing the inter-ministerial issues. “MoCA had also operationalised Air Cargo Community System (ACCS) for all stakeholders to get them into paperless mode which will also reduce costs,” she adds.

Delhi International Airport (DIAL) in collaboration with Delhi Customs Brokers Association (DCBA) and operators of both the cargo terminals (Celebi and DCSC) has launched paperless e-Gate pass with QR coding at their cargo terminals. The e-Gate pass facility would be open to all stake holders effective July 1 as an optional service and it will be made compulsory from July 15. The e-Gate pass facility for import cargo delivery will not only help in ensuring social distancing by reducing human contact at the terminals, but will also expedite the process and save time. The airlines, consolidators or freight forwarders will now upload the scanned copy of Master Airway Bill/ House Airway Bill in the custodian system. The Bill of Entry (BoE) and Out of Charge (OoC) is being transmitted electronically by the Customs to the custodian system. With these details, the custom broker agent will submit the request for issuance of e-gate pass for the delivery of goods and will generate the QR code at his office itself after due verification by the cargo terminal operator, saving time and resources.

Emphasising on high logistics cost in India as compared to US and China, Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport, Highways and MSME, Government of India points to all stakeholders, at the webinar held by Domestic Air Cargo Agents Association of India (DACAAI) , “Unless we reduce this logistics cost, we cannot be competitive in the world. We are working in road sector by creating Delhi-Mumbai express highway wherein work has already started in 32 out of 62 pockets. When ready, the trucks can reach Delhi-Mumbai in just 28 hours instead of 48 hours earlier and they would be able to make 9 trips instead of 4 trips which will bring down the cost. “Movement of agri-horticulture, fruit vegetables, lichees from Bihar, pineapple from Nagaland, oranges from Nagpur, grapes from Nashik, fish, prawns and other perishables is important to increase domestic air cargo volumes. However, it won’t be viable by air unless the airfreight cost and other related handling costs get lowered,” he states. According to him, “Cargo operators should work out full cargo flights for fruit and vegetables to get the best rates from airlines. Even old disused aircraft with defence and can be converted to freighters. By using domestic air carriage of perishables farmers can get the all India market and fair value for his produce as well as operators can get profits.”

After receiving an overwhelming response in its first two digital conclave, CargoTalk is back with its third conclave on July 7, 2020 from 10 am to 12:15 pm. The virtual summit is divided into two one-hour sessions and will have eminent speakers from trade. The summit will focus on the how digitsation has helped air cargo industry to sustain in the business during the Covid-19 pandemic in these grim times. And, Covid-19 impact on road logistics, especially with the rise in freight rate as most of the trucks still stranded. Speakers will include Saurabh Kumar, CEO, GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo, Amar More, Director, Kale Logistics Solutions, Keku Gazder, CEO, AAICLAS, Chander Agarwal, Managing Director, TCI Express, Ashok Goyal, Managing Director, BLR Logistics and Aditya Shah, Executive Director, V-Trans India.

SriLankan Airlines has converted a wide-body passenger aircraft into a dedicated cargo aircraft to support country’s export industries and to keep the country connected with the global economy during the pandemic. The aircraft will fly a total of 170 cubic metres of cargo capacity with the enhanced 60 cubic metres of cargo on its upper deck with 110 cubic metres carried on the lower deck. The total payload of the aircraft will amount 45 metric tonns. The converted A330 aircraft has commenced operations from June 25 to key destinations in the Far East and Europe. Chamara Ranasinghe, Head – Cargo, SriLankan Airlines, said, “With the poor demand for passenger travel and the consequent reduction of air freight capacity in the global market has left a significant void for global supply chains. The past few months have seen SriLankan Airlines operating several routes specifically to cater to this demand for cargo capacity with our fleet of passenger aircraft. The converted operation comes at an ideal time for providing customers with enhanced volume capacity in maximizing the connectivity per flight.” Ashok Pathirage, Chairman, SriLankan Airlines said, “We have transformed this aircraft to allow maximum cargo capacity with main deck loading in addition to the aircraft’s lower deck cargo hold to mainly support the needs of our export industries, as well as our imports sector, during the current global shortage of air cargo capacity and to strengthen the airline’s revenue stream during a time when the air transport industry is in crisis.” The reconfiguration of the aircraft was carried out in-house at the airline’s hub at Bandaranaike International Airport, where the SriLankan Airlines’ engineering team worked around the clock. The new operational configuration …

Saudi Arabian Logistics (SAL) has launched the operations of its state-of-the-art pharma facilities recently opened at the King Fahd International Airport’s Cargo Village in Dammam. The new warehouses will support the infrastructure of pharma and medical equipment handling facilities as per the international standards of the World Health Organization (WHO), the European Union Good Distribution Practice and Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA). Before the expansion, the total area of the medical storage facilities stood at 118 square meters but after expansion, it reached 542 square meters with an operational capacity of 14,000 tonnes a year as follows: 262 square meters of the facilities are dedicated for storing goods with temperature ranging between 15-25 celsius whereas 262 square meters are used for storing goods with a temperature between 2-8 celsius. The facilities can also be used for storing different types of medical cargos with very low temperatures, below zero. Omar Hariri, CEO, SAL, says “We usher in a new phase of advanced cargo handling services for pharma and medical equipment. We are creating the proper environment and developing the infrastructure needed for the current period, which has seen an increasing demand for pharma and medical equipment cargos during the Covid-19 pandemic.”