Page 26 - ITLN March - April 2022 issue

Interview
Richard
Theknath

I see more

cargo charter

companies coming

to India

Jet Freight Logistics is a three decades old Indian freight forwarding company. In December
2021, they migrated from NSE-Emerge Platform to NSE & BSE Main Board. The family-run
business was involved in the domestic air freight movement of Covid-19 vaccines. Chairman
and managing director Richard Theknath, in an exclusive interview with Libin Chacko
Kurian, revealed his plans to set up an Indian all-cargo airline, expand to the domestic logistics
market, sea freight, and 50 percent YoY growth.

What is the kind of business Jet air freight may increase, not immediately
Freight do? but mid this year, once we have crossed
We've been mainly in the business of We have got our own this hurdle of this new variant.
air freight forwarding and we feature cargo airline license I see more cargo charter companies
amongst the top two or three in the coming into India. We are dependent on
country, in terms of air international and are looking at passenger airlines even for charters.
exports. So we have lion's share in all setting up it in the next
the exports that go out of the country four to six months. Are you talking about the all-cargo
by air and we are featuring among the airlines?
top two or three customers for airlines Yes, all-cargo airlines. The government
like Air India and Emirates. We are of India is incentivizing the entire
Air India's and Emirates’ number one the product known as Sea-Air, we send aviation industry with schemes like
customer and for many airlines top two cargo by sea to UAE and from there the GatiShakthi. They're also trying
or three customers. We are present in we'll send it by air. Similarly, by sea to to promote agri exports by benefiting
12 cities in India; we have our own office Europe and from there by air to the US. farmers. They want to make India the
in the UAE, UK and Netherlands and So we tried all new things and gave food table of the world, they want to
very soon in the US also. our customers different options to save reduce the food wastage and once
We move products like couriers, money and move the cargo faster. reduced it will be exported.
pharmaceuticals, agri, engineering goods, By the end of the fiscal year, we Jet Freight is handling the highest
vaccines, and everything goes by air. were doing almost as good in terms of volume of export agri produce by air in
numbers. In terms of volumes, we are the country today. So, all these could
How Covid-19 pandemic affected your still at half of what we had, but the rates be linked to more charter companies
business? have doubled, tripled and so fortunately coming in and I see that there will be a
2020 was a difficult year for us because for us, the margins also have increased. drastic increase in terms of cargo export
our cargo capacity went down drastically What we should expect from the volumes by air and the biggest product
due to the reduced passenger traffic. freight forwarding market in 2022? would be agri produce.
Fortunately, we had good relations Everybody is talking about the prices What is happening in the aviation
with the airlines and still had business coming down, everybody wants the price industry and how the Indian airlines are
compared to most people. We did a lot to come down, and I also want the price evolving with the Air India take-over by
of consolidation at that time as many to come down. But it's a simple market, Tata and the entry of Akasa Air?
smaller companies started giving us demand-supply issue. The prices are I'm very happy with this entire
their business. going to stay or probably even increase for takeover because we've been giving
We tried some innovative ways of both air and sea. Volumes in sea freight cargo to Air India for the last 20 years
sending cargo out. For example, with will also be the same, but the volumes in now and we've been the number one
agent for them in the last 10 years.
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