With compared to previous festive season, airports in India handled a lot more air cargo during this Diwali season. Major contributor in this growth is the growing e-Commerce or say online shopping in Indian market.
Air Cargo boost at CSMIA
Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) in Mumbai handled 5,600 tonnes of cargo in this festive season. Last year, it handled 2,500 tonnes of cargo during the same period. This means that the airport handled almost double cargo than previous year.
The growth at Mumbai CSMIA was spearheaded by the growing online shopping. E-Commerce products saw a huge growth of 87 percent. The airlines which helped transporting this cargo are different on both domestic & international front.
On domestic front, IndiGo and Quikjet Airlines were the ones carrying most of the cargo. Quikjet Airlines in short words in the Prime Air of India. It is an airline operating on behalf of Amazon Prime Air with 2 Boeing 737F in its fleet. On the international front, two prominent cargo carriers were Air India & British Airways. Air India carried large volumes on wide body Boeing 777 between Mumbai and Delhi. The airline has also upgraded all US routes outbound from Mumbai to new Premium Economy equipped aircraft.
Other Airports?
Not only Mumbai Airport, Bengaluru International Airport Limited newly appointed Chief Operating Officer Satyaki Raghunath also confirmed that in this festival season, Bengaluru Airport handled more cargo than last season. He said that air cargo demand is better than last year & even pre-pandemic period.
IndiGo airlines said : “We were able to take advantage of this year’s strong pre-Diwali rush by operating a sizable number of domestic freighter flights. Following Diwali, the market is predicted to soften as is always the case. This will continue for a few weeks before demand starts to increase again in December.”
“Although the quality of India’s road network is undoubtedly improving quickly, the effects are not yet apparent. The airline industry is still essential for a large portion of the cargo that meets the continued high demand for speed-to-market goods, according to IndiGo. For our customers, IndiGo’s high frequency is a true differentiator, and we are able to find the ideal price point where air cargo is still a good deal.”
Featured Image Courtesy : Airbus Newsroom
Source : The Hindu Business Line
