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CARGO UPDATECarriers home in on freight growthNew cargo players prepare to take on their foreign counterpartsBy Tom BallantyneViews differ over how bigthe air cargo business inIndia will become. Aircraftmanufacturer Airbus forecaststhe country will need 165 fullfreighters by 2025. Minister for Civil Aviation,Praful Patel, says 500 dedicated cargo planeswill be required by 2016.The correct answer probably liessomewhere in between, but there’s no doubtthat, as India’s economy continues to boom,there’s plenty of new business to be donein a sector currently dominated by foreignairlines flying to and from the country.Among those pushing ahead with plansto fly freighters are Air India and Indian,formerly Indian Airlines, who are soon tobe merged, Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlinesand even low-cost carriers Air Deccan andGoAir.In January, Air India announced plansto launch its first freighter services in Juneand July, with two converted A310 aircraft.It is also looking at converting another eightA310s and five B737-200s in the near futureand it may lease two B747-400 freighters forlonger-haul services.“This is the first step towards becominga serious cargo player in India. As we inductnew passenger aircraft into our fleet, weplan to convert older aircraft for freighterservices,” explained Air India chairman andmanaging director Vasudevan Thulasidasafter laying the foundation stone for anew cargo handling facility at BangaloreInternational Airport.The first two A310s, which are being sentto Germany for conversion, are expected tooperate from India to Frankfurt, Paris andShanghai under Air India’s plans for anintegrated international-domestic cargonetwork. The carrier has also set up a taskforce to study the financial viability ofconverting B737-300s into freighters.Meanwhile Indian has said it willestablish a dedicated freighter cargo complexat Nagpur and is currently in the process ofconverting five of its B737-200s.Jet Airways, the country’s biggestAir India: the carrier may lease two B747-400s for use as freightersdomestic operator and fast expanding on theinternational front, has also foreshadowedfull-freight operations, possibly by the endof the year.Also eyeing up the cargo business isnewcomer Kingfisher Airlines, ownedby beer tycoon Vijay Mallya. No specificdetails of aircraft or launch date have beenannounced, but Mallya is known to considerit a huge opportunity. He has confirmed that‘As we induct new passengeraircraft into our fleet, we planto convert older aircraft forfreighter services’Vasudevan Thulasidasmanaging director, Air Indiaa name - King Cargo - has been identified fora freight division.GoAir managing director, Jehangir (Jeh)Wadia, told Orient Aviation its freighterdivision, GoCargo, would be a purelydomestic operation and should launch beforeJune as a separate business with independentmanagement. “At the moment we are stillevaluating turboprops versus narrow-bodiesversus wide-bodies,” he said.India currently has only one domesticcargo airline, Blue Dart Express, controlledby DHL Worldwide Express. Blue Dart hasfive B737-200Fs and two B757-200SFs andoperates scheduled night express cargoservices as well as domestic and regionalfreight charters.It will soon be joined by Hyderabad startupFlyington Freighters. Last year it placed aUS$1 billion order for four B777 freighters,then in January ordered six A330-200 cargocarriers. It plans to begin operations beforeyear’s end, focusing on point-to-pointoperations to destinations in West Asia,Europe and the U.S.Foreign firms are also getting in on the act.Global express freight giant, FedEx, movedlate last year to acquire its Indian partner,Prakash Air Freight, for $30 million, so itcould boost its position in the local market.Rival, United Parcel Service (UPS), is alsopursuing an aggressive expansion strategy.The Indian government has pusheddomestic airports to prepare to handleinternational freight and has backed themodernization and building of new air cargofacilities at airports across the country. Thereare also plans for foreign investors to ownas much as 74% of Indian cargo airlines,compared to the 49% permitted now.Indian airports handled 342,000 tonnesof domestic cargo during 2005-06 against325,000 tonnes in 2004-05, a 5.3% growth.But there was a 10% rise in internationalcargo in the same period, from 739,000tonnes to 814,000 tonnes. Home or abroad,there’s money to be made out of freight.22 ORIENT AVIATION INDIA MARCH 2007