Emirates SkyCargo has a strong presence in the Indian market and is poised to grow as the airline is very focused on expansions, new initiatives, and additional capacity.Jasleen Kaur
When you consider international footprint in the Indian air cargo market Emirates SkyCargo comes on the top of the list. This is the unique position that the airline has made for itself in the Indian market. “India provides a huge opportunity for trade, business and travel. From the beginning of this calendar year, we have witnessed a considerable amount of growth in the export segment for Emirates SkyCargo,” said Keki Patel, Cargo Manager, India & Nepal, Emirates Airlines.
Emirates operates 185 weekly passenger wide-bodied flights serving 10 destinations in India providing a pan-India opportunity for exports and imports. Emirates SkyCargo has witnessed a fair growth in cargo volumes from India over the years, owing to its excellent hub at Dubai and its unmatched connectivity offering. Emirates also operates two freighter services a week;
“Emirates offers best connectivity options from the world’s busiest airport, Dubai International Airport (DXB) and now DWC. Emirates connects to 143 destinations in 81 countries and territories (includes cargo-only services). In India alone, Emirates SkyCargo connects to 10 airports each served with multiple daily flights offering various combination connection options to reduce exporter and importers air transportation delivery times from origin to destination,” said Patel.
To strengthen the current position, Emirates upgraded most of the A330-200 operations to Boeing 777, 200 and 300 series in India. Effective June 2014, all the A330-200 are up-gauged to Boeing 777-300 in ports like Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. “Our hub Dubai’s close proximity to the Indian ports helps to shorten the overall transportation time, and Emirates’ excellent global connectivity is the main advantage point.”
Pharma is a strong vertical for Emirates in India. Emirates offers world class infrastructure to ensure a smooth, consistent delivery. The operations are handled by trained and experienced specialists with QEP certification. “Emirates SkyCargo’s tailor-made solutions offer an unbroken Cool Chain, specialised containers and processes, greater security, plus complete compliance with industry and government regulations. Cool Chain solution is truly innovative to ship pharmaceutical and healthcare consignments. Emirates is greatly involved with all major pharma companies in India that export to Europe, East Europe, Africa, USA and South America,” shared Patel.
Apart from pharmaceutical products, Emirates SkyCargo carries ready-made garments, engineering goods, automotive spare parts, and even fully built cars that are sent for exhibitions or road-tests, electronics and electrical goods. “In the telecom category, we transport mobiles, hand phones and phone accessories. Various kinds of perishable products like poultry, fruits, vegetables, seafood and meat also form a sizable portion of our cargo,” said Patel.
E-Freight is a buzzword in the Indian air cargo industry and Emirates SkyCargo considered it as future of the industry too. Patel said, “e-Freight makes the process electronic much faster by reducing the excess documentations and simplifying other procedures. Indian regulatory authorities have yet to embrace the e-Freight functionalities and the present form is very much hybrid. While some of the places and systems are equipped to use the e-Freight service, most of the bureaucratic authorities’ systems still haven’t adopted the e-language.”
Now Emirates has plans to launch A380 flight in India. The wide-body Airbus 380 commences its operations on the Dubai-Mumbai route from July 21, 2014. The aircraft provides cargo tonnage uplift of about 8,000 kg in the belly-hold. Emirates SkyCargo is expected to grow with additional capacity in the coming years. “With the reduction in the operational challenges and improvement of economic conditions in the country; we are expecting an increase in the freighter operations than the current offering of two per week depending on the market requirements for its scheduled services,” said Patel.n