India expands air cargo transshipment reforms

Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ram Mohan Naidu inaugurated the expanded phase of India’s transshipment (TP) cargo reforms at the Transshipment Excellence Centre (TEC) of Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) at Terminal 2 of IGI Airport on 19 August.

He said that the government is working to improve the ease of doing business in India’s aviation sector. Based on industry feedback, the government identified the mandatory re-screening of transshipment cargo as a key bottleneck and has moved to eliminate the requirement. The reform is expected to reduce turnaround times, handling costs and congestion at cargo terminals. A Proof of Concept on the Chennai–Delhi–Frankfurt route demonstrated the impact, cutting average end-to-end transit time from 60 hours to 20 hours.

Proof of Concept for Domestic-to-International transshipment commenced on 20 June 2026 on the Chennai–Delhi–Frankfurt sector using DIAL’s TEC, with Air India operating the service end-to-end. Since its launch, the PoC has transshipped 280 MT of cargo, with aircraft capacity utilisation rising from 75% to nearly 100%.

Based on the successful PoC, the network has now been expanded to four additional domestic origin stations Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Mumbai and Hyderabad and two new international destinations, London and Copenhagen. The expanded network is expected to increase Air India’s monthly cargo volumes on these routes from 1,763 tonnes to 3,183 tonnes, representing nearly 80% growth.

Naidu added, “We are now scaling up this successful model by connecting four more major domestic cargo markets and two new international destinations. While our immediate focus is on Domestic-to-International transshipment, our larger ambition is to position India as a global cargo transshipment hub by leveraging our strategic location between the East and the West. Subsequently, we will expand this framework to International-to-International and International-to-Domestic transshipment as well.”

Earlier, India ended mandatory cargo re-screening in 2025, aiming to cut transit times and strengthen its position as a global air cargo transshipment hub.