Page 14 - ITLN March - April 2022 issue

Spotlight
Air India
Express

The airline began shipping fruits and vegetables, marine and dairy products to Middle Easter countries and to South East Asia

around the world ensured passengers mood was grim as nothing was working,
could travel again. With DGCA’s vehicles were not moving. So we began
For this operation, the airline initiated shipping out vegetables, dairy and
and worked closely with airport operators nod, the Air India marine produce from Kerala and Tamil
in ensuring adequate infrastructure Express then Nadu to the Middle East and Southeast
support was available for cargo uplift. In Asia. While our strength was in the
particular, it worked closely with airports roped in shippers south, we also flew perishables from
that did not have a cargo customs and agents to Mumbai and Delhi. Once passengers
clearance facility to put these in place. began flying again, we began taking
“As a result of our efforts, as well as apprise them of only belly cargo from Jaipur, Amritsar,
support from the government and local the opportunity, Lucknow, Varanasi, etc.”
authorities, cargo customs facilities Air India Express operated more
were established at Kannur and Varanasi and with the due than 300 P2C flights with an average
airports, leading to start of perishable approvals in place, of 15 tonnes per flight to various Gulf
cargo export from these points; at Trichy countries, Southeast Asia and Maldives
airport, plant quarantine facilities were it operated the uplifting a total of 13,332 tonnes of
added and customs clearance was first such cargo-in- cargo during FY 2020-21 and 22,009
made available 24X7 basis, which greatly tons of cargo during FY 2021-22 (April
boosted the airline’s own efforts,” the cabin flight on 17th to December).This included the airline
spokesperson added. April 2020. carrying 9733 dedicated cargo services,
and over 320 P2C services.
Big win for india’s krishi cargo “We carried agri produce from Tier
The airline mostly carried perishable “The first thing we saw was that 2 cities such as Trichy, Mangalore,
goods, especially farm produce. Besides agricultural produce, perishables Madurai, Cochin, Kannur, Calicut,
reducing supply chain disruptions, this coming from these regions especially Trivandrum, Chennai to the Middle
initiative helped local farmers to export Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka where East and to Singapore. We shipped
their produce on time. they are produced were stuck. The plantains and pineapples from Kerala

12
March - April 2022 www.itln.in