Category Archives: Aviation

Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) opened a new domestic cargo Common User Terminal (CUT) in Mumbai near the Western Express Highway in Vile Parle this June, which has been outsourced to Concor Air Ltd (CAL) on a build-operate-transfer basis. CAL is a new company formed specially for air cargo facilities and is a 100 per cent subsidiary of Concor. According to Kamal Jain, Chief General Manager, Concor, the new terminal will also provide warehousing facilities to clients. “We have entered into a concessional agreement with MIAL for this. This new terminal has the capacity to handle 300,000 metric tonnes of cargo annually and is built on an area of 60,000 square feet. It offers state-of-the-art facilities including an online payment facility. We already have airlines like Indigo, SpiceJet, GoAir, Vistara and Jet Airways as our clients. After Mumbai, we are looking to open similar terminals in other cities too.” The cargo terminal is an ‘elevated terminal structure’ where all arriving domestic cargo is managed from the basement level while departing cargo is handled at the upper level. Air India and Blue Dart handle their own domestic cargo operations at their own terminals. Manoj Singh, Vice President, MIAL, said, “This project was on for three years and it’s the biggest facility that caters to the Western region. It can also handle hazardous goods. Freight forwarders have the option to have an office here. The Domestic Air Cargo Agents Association of India already has an office here. It became necessary for this region to have an air cargo terminal of this scale because of the increased domestic cargo business and rise in e-commerce. We are expecting an annual growth of seven per …

“Last year airlines safely transported 52.2 million tonnes of cargo worth around $6 trillion. We have supported some $2.7 trillion in economic activity and 63 million jobs,” said Tony Tyler, Director General and CEO, IATA. Globally, cargo markets showed a 2.3 per cent expansion in freight and mail tonne kilometres (FTKs). This outstripped a capacity increase of 5.8 per cent decreasing freight load factor by 1.6 per cent pp. The top five airlines ranked by total freight tonnes carried on scheduled services were: FedEx Express (7.1 million) United Parcel Service (4.5 million) Emirates Airline (2.5 million) Cathay Pacific Airways (1.6 million) Korean Air (1.5 million)