Category Archives: Aviation

Jet Airways has entered global record books for the highest uplift of cargo by an Indian carrier in a single flight. The airline uplifted 45 tonnes of cargo on one of its flights on the Mumbai-London sector operated by a B777-300ER aircraft. The record is globally significant as only two other international carriers have previously operated a flight each with a cargo complement of over 40 tonnes on a Boeing777-300 aircraft. The cargo comprised of product mix including perishables (fruits and vegetables), engineering goods, garments, courier, leather goods and consolidation cargo. Pradeep Kumar, Senior Vice President, Jet Airways Cargo, said, “Air cargo is a vital part of the business at Jet Airways and this milestone is testament to our dedicated focus of growing cargo revenues, which has recorded a CAGR of more than 15 per cent in the past three years.”

With an aim to make Delhi a charter hub, Celebi launched its charter-handling product in the capital today. The idea behind the launch is to attract more charter into the city and offer a comprehensive air cargo charter handling facility. Delhi has been identified as the first pilot station to be developed as a transhipment cargo hub by MoCA under National Civil Aviation Policy 2016. “Our project allows charter customers to manage multiple operations through a single point of contact,” said Ramesh Mamidala, CEO, Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India, while addressing those present at the launch.

The Indian air cargo industry needs to grow at a rate of about 12.9 per cent every year from 2018 to 2027 to achieve National Civil Aviation Policy’s (NCAP 2016) vision of reaching cargo volumes of 10 million tonnes (MT) by 2027, notes a recent ASSOCHAM-Auctus Advisors joint study. The report suggests that international and domestic air freight is projected to grow at an overall Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.2 per cent. “Considering this trend to continue till 2027, projected international and domestic air cargo will be 3.6 MT and 2.1 MT, respectively, resulting in total air cargo traffic of 6.8 MT,” it states. The study also highlights various issues confronting the aviation logistics sector in India. Lack of enabling infrastructure, lack of automated material handling systems, high manual intervention in processes, and inadequate skilled manpower are some of the key areas where Indian air cargo industry lags behind global peers. “There is an urgent need for creating adequate freight carrying capacity within the Indian air network through creation of new cargo terminals and expansion of existing ones,” the report states.

SpiceXpress, the airfreight unit of SpiceJet, has charted an expansion plan that includes increasing its capacity, and taking its services to more destinations within India and overseas. The company aims to eventually service up to 150 destinations in India, Asia and Europe by 2022. SpiceXpress plans to increase its monthly freight carrying capacity from 15,000 tonnes per month to 27,000 tonnes, by the end of 2018. It also plans to further increase its capacity to 90,000 tonnes by the end of 2022 and also plans to add four more freighter aircraft by March 2019. In terms of destinations, the company is looking to take its services to nearly 10 more locations in India and overseas. These include Mumbai, Kolkata and Guwahati in India, and Dubai, Kabul, Dhaka and Singapore. Besides these aircraft, it also offers cargo capacity on SpiceJet’s passenger aircraft fleet. The fleet includes 36 Boeings and 22 Q400s Bombardiers operating across 47 domestic and 7 international locations.

To power the future growth for its end-to-end air cargo and logistics business, IndiGo has partnered with SmartKargo; a cloud-based air cargo management solution. The airline will deploy SmartKargo for its cargo business across all destinations, including domestic and international operations. IndiGo operates on a fleet size of 189 aircraft including 47 new generation A320 NEOs, 127 A320 CEOs and 12 ATRs, across 57 destinations – 48 domestic and nine internationals. Mohan Kash, Managing Director, SmartKargo India, says, “With our unmatched cloud-based technology and out-of-the-box deployment approach, our customers have significant improvements in key performance indicators, in three main areas, i.e. real-time and complete visibility, higher flown and higher yields.” William Boulter, Chief Commercial Officer, IndiGo, said, “IndiGo cargo has ambitious plans to grow its revenues and remain competitive in this fast-growing area. We needed to have a state-of-the-art technology platform that was fast to deploy and easy to use. SmartKargo includes the local as well as international features needed for our business. Especially important for us was to adopt to best practices in the air cargo industry and deploying SmartKargo can bring us closer.”

Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India, in collaboration with OM Logistics and GSEC, Ahmedabad Airport, have commenced a dedicated bonded trucking from Ahmedabad to Celebi Terminal Delhi IGI Airport, after the successful launch at Kanpur, Ludhiana, Noida SEZ and Pithampur SEZ1 & SEZ2. The objective is to provide their customers a possibility to move air cargo in an efficient, safe, process driven and cost effective manner. Bonded trucking is relatively a new concept in India and Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal has taken a step forward to start a hub & spoke project. This bonded trucking service will open tremendous opportunities to airlines to solicit business from stations that are offline. Ramesh Mamidala, CEO, Celebi Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India, stated, “Now cargo from Gandhinagar, Bhavnagar, Surat, Vadodra and even Indore can be custom cleared at GSEC facility at Ahmedabad Airport and sent to Delhi Airport daily. We hand pick our logistics partners and manage every aspect of the service for commitment, on time performance and transparency to guarantee quality of service to our customers.” “After Ahmedabad, we plan to start bonded trucking from Indore, Jaipur, Durgapur, Pune, Agra, Moradabad and Rishikesh – Roorky belt in 2018. Besides starting temperature-controlled road transport to Delhi from Indore and Ahmedabad, speed, safety and security are the key words that identify our air cargo road bonded service,” added Mamidala.

Coimbatore airport’s cargo department sent an export shipment of 2.5 tonnes of perishable cargo by bonded trucking to Kochi for the first time on September 12. N. Mahalingam, Director, Coimbatore Airport, flagged off the bonded truck with the perishable cargo to Kochi. “We had to send this shipment of perishables, including vegetables like onions and drumsticks, booked to Jeddah by bonded trucking as we have only passenger airlines flying out internationally,” said S. Subramanian, Senior Manager (Air Cargo). “Perishables, including vegetables, fruits and flowers, constitute 50 per cent of Coimbatore airport’s export volume, which is around 350 tonnes a year. There are space constraints because all international flight flying out of the city are relatively smaller and cargo space is available only after passengers are allocated their luggage space. On the other hand, Kochi has wide-bodied aircraft like the Boeing 747, which despite being a passenger flight can accommodate such a sizeable shipment,” he said.

The Chennai airport made way for the giant Antonov AN-124 aircraft, operated by a Russian freight company Volga-Dnepr Airlines, which landed in the city with 53.46 tonne of machinery from Xi’an Xianyang in China. The whole freight was unloaded and had to be carried on 13 trucks. This is first time an An-124 aircraft landed at Chennai airport with considerable amount of payload. Since the airport is a major gateway to south India, such hauls are expected to be a regular occurrence in future . AN-124 aircraft is designed for long-range delivery and air dropping of heavy and large-size cargo, including machines, equipment and troops and has got a payload capacity of up to 150 tonnes. AN-124 is 69.1-metre-long and has an extensive wingspan of 73.3 metre.

SpiceJet has unveiled dedicated air cargo services and inducted first freighter aircraft in its fleet, making it the first scheduled domestic airline in the country to diversify into the airfreight market. The airline has also created a separate division called ‘SpiceXpress’. Ajay Singh, Chairman and Managing Director, SpiceJet, shares, “We are very confident that there is a significant space for dedicated air freighter in the Indian market. The economy is growing at eight per cent and we are having an e-commerce boom in this country.” “The airline will initially start operations on the Delhi-Bengaluru route but will also look at Guwahati, Hong Kong, Amritsar and Kabul. The airline plans to induct four Boeing freighters this year, which will see the airline offering haulage of 27,000 tonnes per month from the current 15,000 tonnes. The new venture will be a division of SpiceJet. Initially, we will operate two Boeing 737-700s and two Boeing 737-800s,” Singh added. Currently, SpiceJet has a cargo capacity of 500 tonnes a day which is mostly as a result of the cargo carried in the belly of the 58-passenger aircraft it operates.

Air India SATS Airport Services (AISATS) has launched a new shipment tracking platform that uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for its cargo handling operations at the Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru. The company will be the first air cargo terminal operator in India to initiate real-time and improved cargo tracking. This technological initiative is a collaboration between AISATS and its Singapore-listed joint venture stakeholder, SATS Ltd., which operates an unrivalled network of gateway services and food solutions in over 60 cities across Asia. With AISATS being the biggest ground handler at Kempegowda International Airport and managing two dedicated cargo handling centers, namely the AISATS Air Freight Terminal and the AISATS COOLPORT, the introduction of RFID technology will enable AISATS to undertake real-time cargo tracking for end-to-end visibility and faster turnaround. The RFID tracking system, capable of processing large quantities of cargo, will further bolster speed and accuracy, thereby making the cargo handling process more secure.