‘One Airport, One Product’ to transform India’s cargo ops

Minister of Civil Aviation Kinjarapu Ram Mohan Naidu highlighted India’s immense market potential, skilled manpower and rapidly expanding cargo sector, while addressing the 11^th Global Aviation Air Cargo Conclave, themed “Gateway to the Skies: Elevating India’s aviation, air cargo and MRO ecosystem for global leadership”. He said India’s air cargo volumes have grown by 47 per cent over the last decade, positioning the country 6^th globally in total air cargo volumes, 3^rd in domestic freight, and 12^th in international freight. With cargo-handling capacity now at 8 million MT and growing at over 10 per cent annually, India has set ambitious targets to reach 10 MMT by 2030 and 21 MMT by 2047. The Minister emphasised major initiatives, including the PMGS scheme, NLP, and creation of a unified national market through GST, have been critical enablers of this progress. With India currently accounting for only 2.9 per cent of global air traffic, he underlined the vast untapped potential ahead. He shared initiatives such as transforming airports into cargo hubs for local production, promoting regional exports, such as frozen fish from Agartala and tea from Dibrugarh, and operationalising the ‘one airport, one product’ concept inspired by the PM’s ‘one district, one product’ vision.