Category Archives: Aviation

DHL Global Forwarding is joining United Airlines sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) programme as it continues to ramp up its green strategy. The world’s largest airfreight forwarder said that as part of United’s Eco-Skies Alliance programme it will contribute towards the purchase of 3.4m gallons of SAF this year. The reductions in carbon footprint are then allocated by DHL to its customers. DHL Global Forwarding, Freight chief executive Tim Scharwath said: “Through this partnership we will be able to show how a market mechanism for SAF can help airlines, freight forwarders, and shippers work together to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon, ultimately zero carbon emissions transport sector.” The forwarder also plans to launch a ‘book and claim’ system to enable customers to ramp up their use of SAF and be allocated SAF certificates to validate the corresponding reduction in their carbon footprint. Christoph Wolff, head of shaping the future of mobility, World Economic Forum, said: “The ‘book and claim’ mechanism is an essential element of SAF certificates. We need frontrunners like Demand Signal group participants United Airlines and DHL Global Forwarding to put concepts into practice so that it can be validated and turned into a formal standard.”

Spicejet becomes first scheduled airline to promote cargo from smaller airports across India. In its pioneering initiative, Spicejet shipped 965 kgs of Litchis from Darbhanga to Mumbai as a part of regional connectivity scheme. Farmers can benefit greatly from this initiative and ship highly perishable Litchis to the major consumption centres in India with ease. Spicejet can also provide additional capacity by deploying its q-400 aircraft, if required. On the occasion, Hardeep Puri, Minister for Civil Aviation said, “As part of Krishi Udan Scheme, fresh Litchis were loaded on a flight to Mumbai from Darbhanga Airport in the Mithila region.” Spicejet has been actively involved in the transportation of goods since the pandemic. Commenting on the successful transportation, Usha Padee, Joint Secretary, Civil Aviation said, “Happy to see the expected outcomes. #UDAN has played a positive role in boosting the local economy. Darbanga is a successful example.”

Cathay Pacific Cargo has made a further contribution to pandemic relief efforts in India with an airlift of 300,000 COVID-19 testing kits, which were a gift from the State of Oregon. The shipment departed Portland for Mumbai via Hong Kong on one of Cathay Pacific Cargo’s Boeing 747 freighters. Cathay Pacific Cargo, forwarder Expeditors and logistics company Davis Trucking partnered with the Oregon Health Authority and Department of Administrative Services, offering their services free of charge for the shipment. Cathay Pacific’s Regional General Manager, South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Mark Sutch said: “I would like to thank our team in the Americas and our local partners for organising this shipment. As one of the leading cargo providers operating into India, we stand united with citizens of the country and further our efforts in bringing essential humanitarian and medical aid to India. ”

DHL Express is launching a new airline in Europe and focusing its UK carrier on international operations through the addition of B777Fs. The express giant plans to launch a new cargo airline based in Austria and is in the process of filing applications with the Austrian authorities. The Austrian airline, which DHL hopes to launch later this year, will operate using Boeing 757 freighter aircraft transferred over from its DHL Air UK business. DHL said the move comes in response to growing e-commerce demand, with first quarter 2021 Time Definite International shipments (TDI) increasing by more than 25% compared with a year earlier. “To respond to this growth and to continue offering its customers fastest transit times for their cross-border deliveries, DHL Express is remodeling its East Midlands based airline, DHL Air UK,” the company explained in a press release. Tom Mackle, managing director at DHL Air UK, said: “The UK has always been a crucial gateway to the world. With an increasing demand in international time definite deliveries this is today more valid than ever.”

Contienental Carriers created history by bring two frieghter charters with covid essential materials to Delhi and Kolkata with a span of two hours. Contienental carriers have been actively helping in transportation of other essential items such as oxygen concentrators from Agra to Moolchand hospital in Delhi. The company successfully chartered the two frieghters to transport 190 Euro pallets, weighing 109 tonnes of ‘Zeolite’, an essential component in Oxygen generation from the suppliers’ factory in South of Italy to Delhi. Upon arrival, Contienental Carriere seamlessly cleared the shipment within 20 minutes from the customs. In a similar way, Ilyusin IL-76 charter freighter uplifted 3 – ISO Oxygen tanks from Titanjin (China) to Kolkata, India. on the same day

As part of its preparations against a probable third wave of Covid-19, Delhi government has imported 6,000 oxygen cylinders from China. These cylinders will be stored at three depots and used in case of a third wave of coronavirus, said Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday. “Around 6,000 oxygen cylinders have been airlifted from China, of which we have received 4,400. The remaining 1,600 will arrive within two to three days,” he told reporters. The chief minister thanked the Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian Embassy in Beijing for the assistance in importing the oxygen cylinders. These can be given to people in need and can be used to create additional oxygen beds at hospitals, he said.“In case of a third wave, these cylinders can be utilised to prepare 3,000 oxygen beds. Perhaps, this is the largest such consignment brought to India since the pandemic began,” he said. He said HCL and Give India Foundation donated for this purpose.

Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB/ BLR Airport) has processed 650,225 kgs (542,620 kgs of imports and 107,605 kgs of domestic inbound) of COVID-19-related relief material from April 1, 2021 to May 19, 2021. Of the total, a significant 567,791 kgs were processed from May 1 to 19, 2021, with imports at 507,820 kgs and domestic inbound cargo at 59,971 kgs. While 200 shipments came in April, the first 20 days of May accounted for nearly 800 shipments, accounting for an overall 25,891 pieces of COVID-19-related cargo. During this period, BLR Airport recorded a total of 136 Air Traffic Movements (ATMs), including 101 international ATMs and 35 domestic ATMs, carrying COVID-19-related cargo. This included 21different carriers (7 Indian and 14 international carriers). Wuhan and Singapore are the top importing origins. Oxygen concentrators, ventilators and Zeolite were the major import commodities, while COVID-19 vaccines and PPEs were the top domestic inbound cargo.

It has been more than a year since the world woke up to the news of the new SARS-COV-2 virus. With over 200 million doses of all approved vaccines distributed to over 120 countries and 9,000 operated flights in which more than 350 DHL facilities were involved, DHL was part of the response strategy from the beginning. Over 50 bilateral and multilateral collaborations with partners in both the pharma and public sector and several new dedicated services were created to stem this task. “The white paper builds on the experience of providing logistics to manage the pandemic over the last 15 months and vaccine distribution in over 120 countries. I do hope that this will help to shape our plans for pandemic management as well as vaccine distribution in India,” says R.S Subramanian, SVP and Managing Director, DHL Express India. Highlighting the aspects that can boost India’s vaccine roll out drive as well as any future health crisis, Subramanian adds, “Better collaboration, boost for manufacturing capacity, research, production and procurement plans and expansion of local deployment capabilities are needed in the coming months. There is movement in this direction.”

Cathay Pacific’s cargo capacity was only gradually recovering in April after the relaxation of stricter crew quarantine rules in the middle of the month. The Hong Kong-based airline in April saw its cargo capacity in cargo tonne km terms drop by 36.6% compared with February levels as a result of stricter quarantine measures being introduced. These rules were relaxed in mid-April for vaccinated crew, but capacity only gradually came back online. The April figure was was also higher than the 25% drop off in capacity recorded by the carrier in March. Cathay Pacific group chief customer and commercial officer Ronald Lam explained: “While we welcomed the easing of quarantine restrictions for cargo aircrew in Hong Kong in mid-April, the positive impact of the relaxation was not immediately realised due to crew rostering lead time and our overall capacity last month remained significantly affected.” “The number of freighter and cargo-only passenger flights that we operated was lower than at any point since the Covid-19 pandemic began, limiting our ability to provide more lift to what was a reasonably buoyant cargo market, particularly on long-haul routings. This reduction in capacity together with the firm market led to a high load factor of 83%.”

The Lufthansa Cargo freighter with the registration D-ALFG took off for the first time with a very special design: the lettering “Flying 100% CO2 neutral powered by DB Schenker” and an illustration of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) highlight the joint mission of Lufthansa Cargo and DB Schenker. Both companies have been working together on climate protection for ten years and have now been able to launch a concrete offer on the market. “We are delighted to have DB Schenker at our side, a partner who is so energetically promoting the reduction of CO2 in the air freight industry. The special livery gives us the opportunity to draw attention to our joint commitment worldwide. It also shows that we take our support of the United Nations’ ‘Climate Action’ Goal very seriously. The increased use of Sustainable Aviation Fuel and a modern freighter fleet are measures with a great impact to sustainably reduce our CO2 emissions,” explains Ashwin Bhat, Lufthansa Cargo Chief Commercial Officer.