Foreign air cargo players upbeat about industry, to add capacity

Indian air cargo industry does not seem to suffer from the kind of tumultuous upheaval that air passenger industry is subjected to now-a-days. In fact, air cargo movement in the country is going to gather further momentum with international airlines planning to increase their capacities into Indian market.

Carriers from the Middle East like Emirates are expanding to India and are also offering onward connections from the Gulf. Egypt Air, British Airways and some carriers from China are also expected to increase their connections to India.

As part of its expansion, Emirates is stepping up frequencies to New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kochi in a phased manner. Effective October 26, 2008, Emirates has introduced four additional flights per week between Chennai and Dubai and in the next phase of expansion, one more flight will be added to the route from February 1, 2009, bringing the total count to 19 flights a week.

From its 10 flights per week schedule from Kochi, Emirates has introduced two additional flights per week from Kochi to Dubai effective October 26, 2008. It has announced another two flights from December 1, 2008, taking the total count of weekly flights to 14. Cargo capacity, accordingly, will increase from 176 tonne to 221 tonnes per week.

Thanks to these capacity augmentation programme of airlines, industry sources expect, cargo movement will gain momentum with increased capacity to support export of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, garments, chemicals, meat, fruits, vegetables, etc. to Middle East, Africa, Europe and America.

Emirates has recently announced a second round of expansion for India, adding 31 weekly flights to its existing 132 weekly flights by February 2009. It will be able to increase air cargo capacity to 389 tonne per week. Significantly, the enhanced capacity will position the airline as the single largest international carrier in the Indian skies, operating 163 flights per week to 10 Indian gateways.

In Mumbai, Emirates will add 7 additional flights per week to its current 28 flights per week schedule effective February 1. Correspondingly, the cargo capacity will increase to 641 tonnes per week.

From Bangalore, its cargo capacity will increase to 302 tonnes per week. The increase is expected to provide significant thrust to goods movement from the garden city which exports electronic hardware, engineering goods, chemicals and pharmaceuticals, fruits, vegetables, and readymade garments to the Gulf, Middle East, Africa, Europe and America.

Chennai is also set to receive enhanced capacity to accommodate its large cargo export base of textiles and garments, electrical and electronic goods, machinery and spares, leather and leather products, pharmaceuticals, perishables, valuables and mobile phones.

According to aviation sources, several established dedicated cargo carriers are also increasing capacity to India. However, Indian carriers are now not focusing on cargo much as they are in the process of cutting down the capacity.
Leading carriers such as Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines --- which were projecting cargo as one of the main sources of revenue -- are now pulling out capacity by 15% from the international routes.

Despite the downturn in the economy, according to industry analysts are bullish about air cargo traffic which is adequately fuelled by economy. They are also believe that the advent of dedicated cargo aircrafts at international and domestic routes will reduce the share of traffic transported by railways and ships.

Contrary to the general perception, commercial activities and a rapidly growing food processing sector will help drive the surge in cargo traffic, they said. The government measure of allowing foreign carriers to take up to 74% stake in cargo airlines is also expected to keep the momentum, they said.