Teleport to add 3 A321 freighters; aims to improve connectivity to China, India
"Three A321 freighters to strengthen its intra-ASEAN network and extended connectivity into APAC countries like China and India," it said.
Teleport, the logistics venture of Capital A (formerly AirAsia Group Berhad) has announced the expansion of its fleet with the addition of three Airbus A321 Freighters (A321F).
This increases Teleport's cargo-only fleet to four freighters in total, in addition to over 200 exclusive AirAsia passenger aircraft belly. The three A321Fs will be operated by AirAsia and will be delivered in stages starting in Q1 of 2023. "The addition of the A321Fs into Teleport's fleet provides the unique loadability and body composition where it allows for containerised loading in both the main deck and lower deck," reads the release.
These narrowbody freighters will greatly strengthen Teleport's cargo network and address the diversifying market demand within Southeast Asia and the overall Asia-Pacific region.
Pete Chareonwongsak, chief executive officer of Teleport said, "It is a timely and strategic move on our part to complement our exclusive AirAsia passenger belly planes with a freighter network to expand and reinforce our increased capacity for key markets like China and India into ASEAN. The combined fleet approach with multi-hub freighter and belly operations will give us a unique "many to many" network advantage to serve our customers in this region. E-commerce continues to be the main force propelling air cargo growth around the region and here at Teleport, especially with key growth in segments like international cross border e-commerce and express shipping."
Each A321F, leased from BBAM Limited Partnership (BBAM), can carry up to 27 tonnes of cargo per flight which is ideal considering the surge in market demand for air cargo to fulfil both small-scale items of e-commerce and bigger scale of volumetric cargo.
Francis Anthony, Head of Commercial Cargo at Teleport added, "The addition of these freighters creates an added availability of skidded cargo capacity for key markets like China, which will allow us to load pre-packed, larger cargo in a secure manner. Through the exclusive AirAsia network, which gives Teleport access to a multi-hub operating model, these three freighters will be seamlessly positioned across AirAsia's key markets like Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. This allows Teleport the agility to take advantage of each hub country's unique geographical strengths, and air traffic rights and cater to every possible dimension of regional demand. Coupled with our extensive network of narrow and wide-body passenger planes in the region, our service offering will put us in a unique position to better serve more segments in the market.
Teleport currently has the largest cargo network with the widest destination coverage in Southeast Asia, encompassing over 160 cities and access to 252 wide-body and narrow-body aircraft.
