Category Archives: Technology

GMR Hyderabad Air Cargo (GHAC), a division of GMR Air Cargo and Aerospace Engineering Limited today announced that it had become the first cargo terminal in India & South Asia region to handle a shipment using the next generation Envirotainer Releye® RLP air cargo containers. Envirotainer active heating and cooling containers are one of the preferred options for movement of highly temperature-sensitive air cargo shipments globally. Pharmaceuticals and vaccines need to be protected from the vagaries of temperature excursions at all times throughout the supply chain providing an unbroken cold chain, irrespective of location, time of day or mode of handling, this is the preferred choice. Envirotainer has introduced the RLP size for the first time in an active container in the industry. Releye® RLP is the next generation temperature-controlled air cargo container introduced by Envirotainer, offering superior performance, up to 50% higher space efficiency, advanced live monitoring, and control features with an unparalleled ability to maintain the temperature of shipment for up to 170 hours, the highest in the world today.

Drone delivery tech start-up, Skye Air Mobility recently confirmed its participation in the Drone Logistics Ecosystem as a new member and the first member from India. The drone delivery tech company primarily dealing on healthcare, e-commerce, and food logistics, as the lead operations member of the first consortium is to be given approval by DGCA. The company is spearheading the BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) trials and the “Medicines from the Sky” trials for the Telangana government in collaboration with leading logistics delivery partners. The collaboration between Skye Air & Mobility & AirGo Design will enable Inclusivity for all players in the industry and provide an open Drone Logistics Ecosystem, and it will standardize globally to ensure the smooth and efficient movement of goods from the factory to the end customer globally. Furthermore, it will create a win-win situation for all participants in this emerging industry and the delivery and courier industry, and more importantly, the customers.

UPS is delivering COVID-19 vaccines with Matternet drones to a hospital in North Carolina. Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist medical center is believed to be the first in the country to receive COVID-19 vaccine deliveries by drone. This new initiative operated by UPS and its subsidiary, UPS Flight Forward expands Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist’s existing drone program, which was launched in July 2020. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 50 percent of vaccines are wasted globally every year, largely due to temperature control failure, Matternet CEO Andreas Raptopoulos said in a statement. When transporting the COVID-19 vaccines, the Matternet M2 drone is outfitted with a special cargo box that contains Cold Chain Technologies’ customized PCM Gel solution, a temperature-sensitive packaging mixture that maintains the COVID-19 vaccine at 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius (35.6 degrees to 46.4 degrees Fahrenheit).

Ethiopian Airlines Group has teamed up with Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) to launch a B767-300ER freighter conversion line in Ethiopia. Ethiopian Airlines Group chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam, said: “In line with our Diversified Aviation Business Model of Vision 2025, we have been increasing our cargo capacity in fleet, ground service infrastructure and cargo connectivity network. Accordingly, we are partnering with IAI, one of the global technology leaders in the Aerospace industry, in building a cargo conversion center in our MRO facilities in Addis Ababa Airport. The Cargo conversion center will commence its first business with three Ethiopian Airlines owned B-767-300 aircraft.” Yossi Melamed, IAI’s executive vice president and general manager of Aviation Group, said, “the partnership comes as the company witnesses a “sharp rise in demand for cargo aircraft” on the back of an acceleration in e-commerce demand due to the Covid-19 outbreak.”

RattanIndia Enterprises Ltd. (“REL”) an electric power distribution company announces a strategic investment in US based Matternet, the world’s most extensive urban drone logistics platform. With this investment, REL has forayed into the deep-tech Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) industry, which is set to transform logistics ecosystems worldwide. Matternet, based out of Silicon Valley counts Boeing, Mercedes-Benz, McKesson Ventures and Sony as investors. Anjali Rattan, Business Chairperson, RattanIndia Enterprises, said, “We are highly impressed with the team and credentials of Matternet. The partnership with Matternet is in line with our philosophy of investing in new age cleantech companies with tremendous growth potential. We share Government’s vision of Drone as a futuretech, which opens new vistas of business opportunities”.

ODeX, the fastest growing automated platform for the shipping industry, has recently announced a collaboration with USoft Multitech LLP for VGM submission and Form 13 integration on ODeX platform. Increasingly being recognized as a one-stop solution for the entire shipping industry, to receive documents and make payments electronically, ODeX’s joint efforts with USoft Multitech is expected to assist over 200 plus shipping lines and NVOCC’s with ease of data submission. Commenting on the alliance with USoft, Liji Nowal, Director, ODeX , said, “It is our constant endeavour to improve and enhance the experience of our esteemed customers and with this venture we have added another layer of convenience, efficiency and savings for them. At ODeX we are determined to bring the use of technology for enhanced shipping operations, which leads to enhancing efficiencies significantly for the entire shipping industry. “USoft aims to provide easy, smooth, automated and economical solutions to custom brokers, freight forwarders, and other logistics service providers,” said, Uday Jhaveri, Designated Partner, USoft Multitech. And in keeping with this, “We have collaborated with ODeX for the efficient and automated online filling of VGM and Form 13. We believe that this collaboration will significantly help streamline the workflow process,” he further added.

Lufthansa Cargo, one of the world’s leading companies in the transport of air freight, has been making significant strides in the direction of embracing sustainability and digitalization – one innovation at a time. The German cargo carrier has been on an interesting path of forging a future built with sustainability goals in mind and has rolled out a number of decisions exhibiting this especially under the leadership of Dorothea von Boxberg, Chairperson of the Executive Board and CEO of Lufthansa Cargo who took charge this March. This also comes close on the heels of the air carrier having clocked an impressive year after its revenues reached historic highs, even as the global air cargo demand has reached above 2019 levels. Despite global air freight capacity crunch leading to a fall in sales, there was an improvement in its cargo load factor and yields were up in all regions served by Lufthansa Cargo.

Digitisation has always been important in enhancing efficiency and increasing real time visibility in every part o the value chain. Says Ashish Asaf, MD, S.A. Consultants and Forwarders, “The pandemic has accelerated the digitisation by years. It is no more a choice but a necessity. However I would insist on building a balance between technology and human expertise. Cloud based data has become the norm. also the pandemic has changed the perception towards technology, which was earlier considered a cost is now pondered upon as investment to improve logistics operation. We need to train our people in such a way that they treat technology as an enabler rather than a burden.”

Each adversity brings us a bigger opportunity! Pandemic did the same. It was like 4-5years of digitalisation packed into one and delivered to all of us. Says Amar More, CEO, Kale Logistics solutions, “Earlier words like Artificial Intelligence, IoT’s, Blockchain etc. scared all of us. But with pandemic, these same words have become the norm. India has a drone policy now. This should have happened long time back since the world relies on India for technology. It is considered as the world’s IT back-office. Today, with pandemic many logistics companies have already adopted various technologies to remain operational. There was tremendous increase in digitisation in India.

Redefining Air in the last one-and-half-year as Agility, Innovation and Resilience. Tushar Jani, Chairman, Cargo Service Centre Group, says “The cargo industry needs a human face of technology. If our mindset is ready to adopt technology, what the primitive technology in the face of email and others have achieved, think of a situation where with integrated technology approach as whole, what transformation will it do to the Air cargo industry. I think we can be number one in showing the technology path to the world. We have the capability to do it. All three pointers, Agility, Innovation and Resilience can be achieved through technology. After digitalisation, our next step should be digitisation. If we do that, we will be increasing our cargo infrastructure by at least one hundred times!”