BLR becomes first metro airport to show YoY cargo growth since Covid

October 21, 2020: Kempegowda International Airport, Bengaluru (KIAB/ BLR Airport) today announced that in September 2020 it has become the first Indian metro airport to report positive growth in Year-on-Year cargo volumes after the prolonged slump due to Covid-19 pandemic.

“Improved connectivity and increase in Passenger to Cargo (P2C) aircraft, combined with proactive measures by Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) — operator of BLR Airport — to enable seamless processing to have pushed cargo volumes into positive territory,” noted the release.

Also read: BLR Airport to raise annual cargo capacity to a million metric tonnes

In the first two-quarters of FY2020-21, between April and September, BLR Airport cargo terminals processed 131,603 metric tonnes of freight. The cargo processed in September was 32,449 MT, a growth of 0.3 percent, against the same period last year. September 2020 witnessed a 4.5 percent growth in international cargo, of which export cargo grew by 7.6 percent. Meanwhile, domestic cargo is showing a slower recovery at 5.2 percent lower than the same period in the previous year.

Perishable cargo has been one of the major growth drivers, with BLR Airport having processed 17,212 MT during this period. The Airport accounted for highest exports of perishables among Indian Airports till June 2020. It also processed 180,745 kgs of pomegranate from April to August 2020, to emerge as the leading Airport for pomegranate exports from India. The other segments driving growth are readymade garments, engineering goods, pharma and medical supplies.

The introduction of our road feeder service – LOGI Connect – to link cities like Tirupur, Coimbatore, Ambur, Salem, Erode, Hyderabad and Chennai further augmented growth, powering BLR Airport’s all-India market share of air cargo from 11 to 14 percent.

Before the pandemic, around 60 percent of domestic and international freight was being carried in belly space of passenger aircraft and the remainder in freighters. With the reduction in passenger flights due to restrictions, several airlines – both domestic and international – converted P2C aircraft, enabling the availability of a larger amount of cargo capacity. As a result, BLR Airport saw the growth of cargo aircraft movements by 139 percent against the previous year.