Category Archives: Aviation

Ajay Singh, CMD, SpiceJet, has said that they have been able to sail through the crisis owing to their cargo operations. “At SpiceJet, we tried to take a different path, wherein when there was no passenger traffic, we decided early on to use our aircraft for cargo business, which was our most significant reaction to this COVID crisis. In fact, in the last 2-3 months, we have emerged as India’s largest air cargo airline by a very long way. We carried close to 20,000 tonnes of cargo in the last 2 months and this includes flights we have done under Lifeline UDAN, all the medicines, medical equipment, and PPE kits that we got from different parts of the world into India. Also, outside, we sent medicines, fruits, vegetables and other things in support of our farming community and maritime community etc. Hence, we’ve tried to play a positive social role and we were trying to keep ourselves commercially afloat by expanding our cargo operations,” he said.

LATAM Cargo has expanded its pharma network by adding four new transit stations. The transit stations provide access to Puerto Rico, New Zealand, Ecuador and Paraguay and allow LATAM Cargo to offer more routes for different origins-destinations. Cristina Onate, Vice President – Marketing and Product Development, LATAM Cargo, says, “The goods we transport with our pharma solutions to Latin America are delicate and extremely sensitive to temperature deviations.” The carrier has opened pharma transit stations in Miami, Santiago, Buenos Aires and a second entry point in Sao Paulo over the last three months. This allows the carrier to expand the number of routes it can serve with its CEIV certified pharma service.

Dachser has announced that the company has invested in its location in Nuremberg, including expansion of transit terminals for industrial goods and food by over 5,200 m2. The company is investing EUR 22.5 million in the project, the construction phase of which was completed at the end of May. “Over the past ten years, our location in Nuremberg has seen positive development in the areas of industrial goods and food, as well as in warehousing. So much so that we have now reached the limits of our capacity with the existing facility,” says, Bernhard Engel, Branch Manager – European Logistics, Dachser’s Nuremberg. The company is creating extra parking spaces for trucks and employee vehicles, in addition to enlarging the office building by 1,200 m2.

In order to facilitate digital transformation of airlines, cargo.one and IBS Software has announced their strategic partnership. The two companies have been working together to create custom integrations for leading airlines, including Etihad Cargo and Nippon Cargo Airlines, to successfully help them accelerate their digital distribution capabilities. As COVID-19 forces airlines and forwarder sales teams to adapt to a new normal, cargo.one has reported a record increase in usage and demand. Moritz Claussen, Founder & Managing Director, cargo.one, says, “We see that COVID-19 has been a catalyst for digital transformation within the air cargo industry. This is reflected in the now over 1,500 forwarder branches using cargo.one on a daily basis. “Furthermore, we see that distributing capacity online at live rates is an essential part of the recovery roadmap for many airlines. Together with IBS Software we have been building a proven plug and play solution that empowers all IBS airlines to seamlessly integrate with cargo.one and get access to our ever-growing user base. It will allow airlines to boost sales online and almost instantly relieve overloaded sales staff.” Ashok Rajan, SVP & Head of Cargo & Logistics, IBS Software, says “We truly believe that leveraging online distribution is the way forward for airlines to emerge faster and stronger from the crisis and we are excited to enable these connections with innovation leader cargo.one and our state of the art technology.”

Bollore Logistics India has successfully moved aid & relief and healthcare shipments from Mumbai, to Yangon, Myanmar. The company has successfully organised these tasks through two charter flights. The first flight was carried out on April 29, 2020 with Spice Jet using Boeing 737-700F and the second flight was operated on May 15, 2020 on Indigo’s Airbus A 320, a passenger aircraft used as a makeshift freighter. India team closely monitored the charter planning and cargo execution to ensure cargo readiness for loading prior to flight arrival to avoid any last-minute delays and rollovers. The team proposed the most economical and time bound solution in close coordination with Myanmar, to the clients who awarded their shipments from various locations within India.

To end its dependency on others, like Rehmankheda in Lucknow, the district Varanasi has taken a step ahead with the efforts to get its own packhouse. The step was taken after the success in export of fresh vegetables and fruit from farms of Varanasi and adjoining region in the markets of Dubai and London. The state government has already sanctioned the construction of a packhouse by mandi parshad in Varanasi and land is been identified in the industrial estate of the UP State Industrial Development Authority (UPSIDA) in Karkhaiyo area. According to Deepak Agrawal, Divisional Commissioner, Varanasi Divison, “A cold storage of 30 metric tonne storage capacity is already being developed at the Lal Bahadur Shastri International Airport.” He adds, “We have started talks with the officials of Airport Authority of India to allow establishing a temporary packhouse of two to three metric tonne capacity with the same cold storage and after a final decision is taken by the AAI, the temporary packhouse would be made operational till a full-fledged packhouse is established at Karkhioyao.”

GMR Hyderabad International Airport has appointed Pradeep Panicker as the new Chief Executive Officer. Panicker has replaced SGK Kishore in this role. Prior to this, he was the deputy CEO of GHIAL, since January 2018. Before that, he served the GMR Delhi International Airport in different roles and responsibilities for 13 years since he joined in 2004. Prior to this role, Panicker was also associated with Mumbai SEZ Development Company, Feedback Ventures and L&T Finance. Domestic operations have been going on in the GMR-led Hyderabad International Airport, ever since the Centre decided to resume operations of domestic flights.

SpiceJet has added Moscow to its growing international cargo network, operating its maiden cargo flight from Hyderabad to Moscow carrying more than 16 tonnes of pharma supplies. The airline has deployed its Boeing 737 freighter aircraft for this cargo flight to Domodedovo Airport. “Moscow is the latest addition to our fast expanding cargo network which spans over 35 international destinations. We have added six new international destinations in the last 10 days. Since the lockdown began, SpiceJet has operated more than 2200 cargo flights and has carried around 15,700 tonnes of cargo,” says Ajay Singh, Chairman & Managing Director, SpiceJet. SpiceJet has operated special cargo flights to and from Abu Dhabi, Almaty, Baghdad, Bahrain, Bangkok, Bishkek, Cambodia, Cairo, Cebu, Colombo, Dhaka, Doha, Dubai, Guangzhou, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Huangzhou, Incheon, Jakarta, Kabul, Kathmandu, Khartoum, Kyrgyzstan, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, Male, Myanmar, Shanghai, Singapore, Sharjah, Sulaymaniyah, Tashkent, Ukraine, to name a few.

Bangalore International Airport (BIAL) is set to introduce the Air Cargo Community System (ACS) to further streamline air logistics. BIAL has signed an e-agreement with Kale Logistics Solutions to develop the ACS platform which is an effective business continuity tool that BIAL can provide to its cargo stakeholders. “As part of our digital transformation efforts, together with our cargo community, we are excited to implement a data-sharing platform,” said Satyaki Raghunath, Chief Strategy & Development Officer, BIAL. Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics Solutions, says, “In the digital age, airports must be nimble to manage issues related to security, rising costs, unprecedented lockdowns and curfews. Kale’s ACS for BIAL is a next-gen community platform, which will enable collaboration between stakeholders in the supply chain to launch new services and deliver superior customer experiences.”

The Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) has announced the first phase of ‘all-India roll out of faceless assessment’. With the objective of speedy clearance, transparency in decision making and ease of doing business, the board decided to implement the next generation reforms in the customs clearance process under ‘Turant’ customs. The Board has decided to begin faceless assessment in phases beginning with Customs stations which already have the experience of the pilot programs. Therefore, the first phase would begin from June 8, 2020 at Bengaluru and Chennai for items of imports primarily covered by Chapters 84 and 85 of the Customs Tariff Act, 1975. The phased rollout plan envisages that Faceless Assessment shall be the norm pan India by December 31, 2020.