As the health, humanitarian and economic shock, ‘COVID’ hit the world, it starved the skies of passenger and cargo demands as lockdown and travel restrictions followed immediately.
With around 40% of annual global air cargo typically transported in the belly hold of passenger aircraft, the grounding of planes created a huge gap between demand and supply. Innovations such as loading the cabins with cargo also fell short to fill up the gap and cater to the needs adequately, creating a need and market for all cargo aeroplanes.
Looking at the decline of international passenger traffic and scarcity of belly-hold space, India’s freight-forwarding specialist Jet Freight Logistics sees an opportunity and needs to establish its in-house cargo airline.
In addition to this, the Incentivization of the aviation industry by the government of India with plans like GatiShakti, and the push towards agri exports has further supported the freight forwarding companies’ ambition of its all-cargo airline.
Jet Freight is handling the highest volume of export Agri produced by air in the country today and expects a drastic increase in terms of cargo export volume by air especially Agri export, creating the market for cargo airlines in the coming future.
With its Indian all-cargo airline Jet freight aims to help ramp up capacity in the Indian international freight market.
As per the company sources, the plans for airlines establishment have been pushed forward because there’s a new [Covid] variant and all the permissions and licenses are getting a bit difficult to obtain.
The logistics company plans to establish the airline in the next four to six months and build a fleet of up to 30 aircraft within 10 years, but there still are a couple of licenses, permissions to come through.
When up and running, the Jet freight airlines will establish the US, Europe, UK, the UAE, and some points in the Far East, China, Hong Kong, and Africa as their biggest routes. Operationally, the still-unnamed carrier will target B777s and B747s.
Despite the vast market size, the Indian air cargo market is largely catered by only one dedicated freight specialist – Blue Dart Aviation.
JFL which is one of India’s three largest air freight forwarding firms, in terms of air international exports has close relationships with Air India, Emirates, and other airlines and is present in 12 cities across India as well as in the UAE, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and soon, the United States.
