Vol. 8 No.81 WE COVER THE WORLD Monday August 3, 2009

     Hyped as a big-ticket event, Air India’s tie-up with India Post could certainly bring a little sunshine to the flailing airline.
     Some time at the end of this month, India Post is scheduled to kick-start a service—night airmail—that is all but forgotten.
     India Post will operate the service with Nagpur as its hub, bringing back memories of 1950, when the airport in the city was used to exchange mail coming in from the four corners of the country.
     In Circa 2009, the Dr. Babasheb Ambedkar International Airport at Nagpur will emerge as the hub again, a precursor to its avatar as the only multi-modal hub of the country in a few year’s time.
     A pet project of civil aviation minister Praful Patel, the Nagpur Hub has a strong advocate in Air India’s Director (Cargo) Anita Khurana.
     At almost every seminar on air cargo, she espouses the cause of the Nagpur hub and points out that the hub will, in the future, connect India to the world.
     However, for the present, Nagpur will host two freighters from Air India sporting the India Post logo.
     The two planes will fly out from Mumbai and Chennai to Nagpur every evening. They will be joined by a third aircraft that is already in service on the Kolkata-Guwahati route, which will reach Nagpur via Delhi.
     After exchanging the postal cargo pallets, the freighters will fly back to their respective original destination.
     The planes will take off from Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata around 11:30 pm.
     The first freighter, a converted Boeing from the erstwhile Indian (Airlines), will take off from Chennai and touch Bangalore before reaching Nagpur.
     The second all-cargo flight will reach directly from Mumbai to Nagpur while the third one will fly from Kolkata to Guwahati and then to Delhi before reaching Nagpur.
     Later, the India Post aircraft will connect Ahmedabad and Surat also to Nagpur.
     A long time in the making, the India Post air cargo project has come at a time when the Department of Posts has been making concerted efforts to improve its mail network and infrastructure in the Northeastern states to provide a better quality of postal services.
     India Post has been in overdrive to take a big bite of the express market, which all of a sudden is seeing a number of players: it leased a Boeing from Air India for express shipments to the northeast of the country with Kolkata as its regional hub.
Tirthankar Ghosh

IATA World Air Transport Statistics Delivered

IATA World Air Transport Statistics (WATS) 53rd Edition covering 2008 data is in circulation.
World Air Transport Statistics (WATS) draws from half a century of experience to assemble the key figures of over 250 airlines, including low cost carriers.
WATS is the air transport industry's most comprehensive and up-to-date reference digest, and offers extensive coverage of a wide range of critical industry issues.
To make data viewing even easier, an interactive CD-ROM with key performance indicators is now included with the WATS digest.
To order & more info: www.iata.org/ps/publications/wats.htm
(Tables have been extracted from WATS 53rd edition.)

International FTKs

Domestic FTKs

Rank	Airline	Millions	Rank	Airline	Millions
1	Korean Air	8,822	1	Federal Express	8,540
2	Cathay Pacific Airways	8,245	2	UPS Airlines	5,687
3	Lufthansa	8,194	3	China Southern Airlines	1,058
4	Singapore Airlines	7,486	4	Air China	788
5	Federal Express	6,582	5	Northwest Airlines	614
6	Emirates	6,013	6	China Eastern Airlines	598
7	Air France	5,817	7	Japan Airlines	443
8	Cargolux	5,334	8	All Nippon Airways	425
9	UPS Airlines	5,289	9	American Airlines	406
10	China Airlines	5,261	10	United Airlines	381

Total (International + Domestic)

Rank	Airline	Millions
1	Federal Express	15,122
2	UPS Airlines	10,977
3	Korean Air	8,890
4	Cathay Pacific Airways	8,245
5	Lufthansa	8,206
6	Singapore Airlines	7,486
7	Emirates	6,013
8	Air France	5,820
9	Cargolux	5,334
10	China Airlines	5,261

UPS Shenzhen New Customs

(Shenzhen Exclusive)—On July 30, South China’s Shenzhen Customs signed a memo with UPS at Shenzhen, providing 24-hour custom-clearing service for UPS intra-Asia air hub at Shenzhen Airport.
According to the memo, express goods of UPS, after departing from Hong Kong Airport, will be transported directly to the tariff-free zone at Shenzhen Airport by ground means, where the Shenzhen Customs will provide 24-hour one-stop keeping and clearing service, thus greatly shorten the time for customs clearing.
The two parties will make sure UPS intra-Asia air hub has a smooth beginning at its scheduled opening in January 2010 at Shenzhen Airport.
Liao Qiming, VIP of UPS Asia-Pacific, said at the ceremony:
“Saving half day or one day on some procedure, will greatly strengthen our competitiveness, shortening the time on logistics for our customers in Pearl River Delta Region.”
Shi Fusheng, Deputy Commissioner of Shenzhen Customs, said:
“We believe the new hub will significantly promote trade and cargo growth of Pearl River Delta Region, and Shenzhen Customs will offer a series of measures to facilitate the running of this hub.
UPS is moving its intra-Asia air hub from Philippines to Shenzhen in China's thriving Pearl River Delta to improve customer service by reducing transit times across Asia.
With planned USD180 million investments, the new hub is now two months before its completion of construction in September.
The hub is capable of handling 18,000 packages one hour, but also keeps the flexibility of doubling its capacity to 36000 per hour.
David

Air Cargo News FlyingTypers leads the way again as the world’s first air cargo publication to connect the industry to the broadly expanding and interactive base for social commentary—Twitter.
Here are updates from Twitter so far this week. To be added to this 24/7/365 service at no-charge contact: acntwitter@aircargonews.com

August 2:    EU regulators want air speed sensors on A330/340 that may have contributed to the Air France Airbus A330 crash in June changed. Three of the L-shaped metal tubes are located on forward fuselage.

August 2:    In Denver, USA where UA has 34% of market, F9 21% & WN under 14%- WN put up a $113.6 million bid for F9 that would slide it past UA if completed.

August 1:    Boeing reveals late next month when B787 will fly. The composite airplane stuck on stress problems between the wing and the side-of-body.

August 1:    Virgin Galactic's deal with Abu Dhabi’s Aabar Investments for a 32% stake gets $280 million to further the dream of travel in space.

July 31:    Lufthansa profit first six of eight million euro has Chief Financial Officer Stephan Gemkow not satisfied while praising employees.

July 31: All of India air cargo less than 2 million ton, Frost & Sullivan Report says total India cargo 1.77 mill ton (2008) to grow 8.3% year by 2013.

July 31: Aerologic reports 90% + capacity for B777F July on the Euro-Asia route. Second B777F was delivered July 17. Six more by end of 2010.

July 31: Philadelphia based privately owned BDP International bought U.K.-based Rostrum Forwarding Ltd., Dartford, Kent and will change name to BDP.

July 31:   Lufthansa Cargo MD11F + ATH (FRA/ATH/PEK/HKG (Thurs). FRA/IST/FRA A300F to ATH 5X. FRA/SEA MD11F 1X (Thurs) Aug 20. FRA/VCP 7X & FRA/BOG 3X (Mon).

July 31:   American daily flights go ORD /PEK April 7, 2010 as Shanghai World Expo opens. AA has served ORD/PVG since 2006.

July 31:   Has Boeing forgotten how to make airplanes? Qatar Airways thinks not. Akbar Al Baker QR CEO says he expects 30 B787s delivered by 2015.

July 31:   AF/KLM Q1 cargo down but pax revenues worse. Lousy fuel hedge impacts everything. Cost reductions help. Liquidity put at 5.7 billion Euros.

July 30:   Like parents who left town while the kids were at school, word Uganda sold Entebbe Airport raised angst. Pres Yoweri Museve bids to fix EBB.

July 30:   Cargoitalia that many thought went bust is back and flew some cargo from Milan to Hong Kong July 25.

July 30:   IATA Cargo said June Int'l Cargo down 16.5 %,13th straight minus month. DG Bisignani said use of capacity very weak 47.3%.

July 30:   You lift five hundred tons & what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt? Kuehne+Nagel gets new 3 year deal with LSG Sky Chefs.July 30: Aramex Logistics now ISO 9001:2008 in The Netherlands includes Schiphol-Rijk, Aalsmeer, Rotterdam, Eindhoven and Groningen.