Page 16 - ITLN March - April 2022 issue

Spotlight
Air India
Express

Shipments of fresh produce being loaded onto the Air India Express aircraft
and vegetable produce from the southern In the subsequent months, the Indian Gulf, or Kuala Lumpur or Singapore
states. In April, the mango season had air cargo revival story saw many takers and brought back passengers. This
just started in the northern part of as several Indian carriers followed suit went on till about September of
India, so we had a lot of flights going, as did carriers like Emirates, Flydubai, 2021 post which we began having
which were carrying only 17-18 tonnes Air Arabia. passengers either way,” the airline
of mangoes. That is when the Ministry As passenger operations slowly spokesperson said.
of Civil Aviation also came up with the revived initially with the Vande Bharat
Krishi Udan scheme in a bid to boost flights and then domestically, the Social impact of the endeavour
cargo in the absence of passenger traffic. airline would gradually reduce the Interestingly, the airline was able to
It became a kind of an India story. In fact, number of P2Cs. The mandate was that serve a number of objectives through
we also explored a new trade lane of it could fly cargo only if there were nil this initiative: it could not only cover up
delivering perishables to the Maldives, passengers. The P2Cs resumed again partly for lost revenue streams but also
and on our return flights we brought in during the second lockdown in 2021 serve a social cause, by helping local
marine products to Trichy, etc. In the until passenger activity resumed again farmers send their produce to markets
last fiscal 2021-2022, we did almost one by September 2021. in the Gulf/Middle East and Southeast
to two P2C flights per day,” the airline “So earlier, we plied cargo either Asia. This way the airline could achieve
spokesperson shared with ITLN. ways, now we took in cargo into the effective utilisation of the manpower

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