Positive Signs for Air Cargo Services in India

Be it by surface or air transportation, the share of freight in the overall traffic has been higher than passenger figures. In particular, this phenomenon has prevailed in marine and air traffic across the globe and India is no exception. Thus the air cargo services in India have witnessed a steady rise over the years.

To a great extent, the credit for this goes to the progressive policies of successive governments at the centre as well as the states. They have lent a fillip in the development and upgrading of airports across the country. The ‘Open Skies’ programme mooted as part of the LPG (liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation) steps in early 1990s, lent a fillip to the aviation sector. Evident have been the steep rise in the number of private operators (airlines) and the massive improvisation of major and minor airports.

In the very first decade of this challenge, the air cargo transportation in India marked a growth as never before. A lion’s share in this air traffic pertained to international flights which in turn benefited the export-import trade to a great extent. Apart from scheduled flights, there was a multi-fold increase in the number of chartered aircraft landing and taking off from all the major airports and this trend has continued since then. This fact (as per Ministry of Civil Aviation’s statistics) could be gauged from the following figures for the past two fiscal years:

Volume of Air Cargo handled in India (in 000 tonnes)

2012-13 2013.14

Domestic 784.22 835.40

International 1406.33 1422.51

Total 2190.55 2277.91

Meanwhile, the Airport Authority of India (AAI) that oversees the functioning of most of the airports has drawn up a mega plan to improve the cargo handling facilities at the airports managed by it. For the year 2013-14, the AAI handled 328054.72 MT of freight.

In other words, India has kept pace with the global trends. According to IATA (International Airport Transport Association), the air cargo data for 2014 showed a growth rate of 4.5% as compared to 2013 in terms of freight tonne kilometres (FTKs). That was a significant acceleration from the 1.4% recorded in 2013 over 2012.

In its regional analysis, the IATA rated the Asia-Pacific and the Middle East as the most significant growth sectors for airlines. It noted that the carriers in the Asia-Pacific region grew by 5.9% in December, 2014 compared to December 2013, and 5.4% for the entire annual period of 2014. Of course, the operators in India have to vie with airlines of China, Japan and Singapore who incidentally project a better performance chart for both scheduled and chartered flights.

Expansion in bulk cargo handling facilities with better logistical support is bound to augur well for the air freight services in the country. To this end, more funds are a must for the inland container depots (ICDs) where several integrated steps are the need of the hour. These include better and faster Customs clearance of containers at both the pre-stuffing and de-stuffing stages in the airports and ICDs. Alongside, the export inspection agencies, forwarding and clearing agents, insurance assessors and surveyors as well as the railways too need to keep pace with this expansion plan.