august2021 - 31

CARGO MATTERS
(IGIA) in New Delhi, which handled 955,000
metric tonnes of freight in fiscal year 2020,
emerged as the country's leading cargo handling
airport; however, the share of domestic
airfreight dropped by some 7 percent in 2020
on a year-to-year basis.
Other airports are also focusing on cargo,
hoping to revive business and offset the passenger
traffic downturn.
Airports and ground service
providers are focusing on
cargo, hoping to revive
business and offset the
passenger traffic downturn.
nies that provide specialized ground handling
services. SpiceJet, a private Gurugram based
budget airline, has outsourced its loading and
driving services at Mumbai airport to CelebiNAS
Airport Services India.
Delhi Cargo Terminal Management India,
a joint venture between DIAL and Çelebi
Ground Handling of Turkey, is currently one
of the largest cargo terminals by volume in the
country. Murali Ramachandaran, who heads
the company's operations in India and is a seasoned
veteran of the aviation industry, has said
in media interviews that he does not foresee
business volumes returning to the 2019-level
anytime soon. He said that in the event of a
slow-paced recovery, the volumes could return
to the pre-COVID levels only by 2022.
Cargo to Bolster Indian
Airports' Business
Cargo has raised the hope of many airports.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport
Building India's Transit Hubs
The government's National Air Cargo Policy
has heightened the expectations of Indian
freight forwarders, particularly because the
policy purports to make India one of the top
five air freight markets by 2025 and create
air-transport shipment hubs at all major airports.
The policy also aims to leverage India's
geographical location as a transit hub between
Europe and Southeast Asia and a gateway to
the South Asian region. The policy could
encourage code-sharing/interline agreements
between foreign and Indian carriers.
Experts say that India needs transshipment
cargo hubs not only because of the country's
potential to grow as one of the world's largest
economies and the huge size of its consumer
market but also because the country, after
overcoming the current pandemic-precipitated
economic downturn, will also play
an increasingly important role as one of the
Indo-Pacific region's major economic growth
engines, helping to drive Asia's regional trade
and investment flows.
But to achieve this, India needs to undertake
investment, and aggressively promote exports
to sustain rapid economic growth over the next
five years.
IGIA has launched a dedicated transshipment
center exclusively for cargo services.
The facility called " Transshipment Excellence
Center " is about 70,000 square feet and can
handle about 20,000 tons of cargo a month.
The airport operating agency, Delhi International
Airport Limited (DIAL), was the first to
take up the initiative under the National Civil
Aviation Policy 2016, which aims to develop
air cargo transshipment hubs at major airports.
With India expected to post robust growth
in aviation, assuming that the pandemic is
quickly brought under control and there is
no worsening of the situation, experts agree
that the country has the potential to play a
much larger role in both passenger and air
cargo traffic; suppliers of all kinds of airport
equipment, including ground and cargo handling,
are rubbing their hands in glee over such
a prospect.
India's air cargo potential has not been fully
tapped. This can be seen from the fact that
the total annual volume of about 2.5 million
metric tonnes of cargo handled by all Indian
airports is less than that handled by individual
airports such as Memphis, Hong Kong, Shanghai,
Incheon, Anchorage and Paris.
Hyderabad Airport Aggressively
Promotes Cargo Traffic
After Delhi Airport, the upcoming Noida
International Airport Limited (NIAL) in
nearby Jewar is expected to be a major air cargo
hub for India. According to the development
plan of the Techno-Economic Feasibility
Report (TEFR), NIAL will be a transshipment
hub for the country once it starts operations in
2022-23, though some experts believe it could
be delayed due to several reasons, including
the pandemic.
Experts agree that India's geographic location
gives it " strong strategic advantages " as a
future transit cargo hub. Nevertheless, there
are also challenges, including inadequate
infrastructure to ensure timely and efficient
cargo handling.
Vidah Kumar Jaipuriar, the CEO of DIAL
averred that India's air-cargo sector had witnessed
" robust growth " in the past couple of
years. The National Air-Cargo Policy Outline
2019 focused on many initiatives aimed
at elevating India to the rank of one of the top
freight markets in the world. Jaipuriar has said
that Delhi's Transshipment Excellence Center
is intended to achieve " seamless and efficient
movement of transshipment cargo. "
Delhi Airport has two air cargo terminals
with 1.8 million metric tonnes of annual cargo
handling capacity, which can be increased to
2.3 million metric tonnes. Delhi Airport has
also developed warehousing facilities with
30,000 square meter area for freight forwarders
and other logistics companies at the airport.
Delhi airport set a record in fiscal year 2018 by
handling 1.04 million metric tonnes of cargo,
the highest cargo volume ever handled by an
airport in India.
The significance of pharma and perishable
products, already a mainstay of India's supply
chain, gained further significance with the
AUGUST 2021 AviationPros.com 31
Photo courtesy of time:matters
http://www.AviationPros.com
august2021

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