India’s total air cargo volumes reportedly grew to around 3.75 million tonnes in the financial year 2019. Narayanankutty Karayangal, Senior Director – Airfreight, DHL Global Forwarding, expresses his views on setting up Air Freight Stations (AFSs) to handle international air cargo.
Several freight forwarders including DHL Global Forwarding have a long standing expectation for Air Freight Stations to develop. India’s total air cargo volumes reportedly grew to around 3.75 million tonnes in the financial year 2019, a 7.5 per cent growth rate. Airports are built to handle certain capacity levels but are currently handling several times more. There will come a certain inflexion point where these facilities can’t continue expanding to cater to such growth. Further, the quantum of cargo that needs to be handled during the peak periods at the end of every month and quarter is significantly higher. Airports are less geared to handle these peaks and have limitations on space, infrastructure and the workforce. All these factors can lead to congestions, disruptions to turnaround time and negatively impact the deliveries for customers.
Increasingly, freight is getting more sophisticated and needs very careful handling, onto and off airline pallets. The lack of skilled handling staff and equipment are often a challenge. An external facility managed by warehouse experts is greatly needed to meet these requirements.
Implementation takes time
The air cargo sector sees the value and benefits of establishing air freight stations but implementation takes time. There are a few AFSs in India but not commonplace at this juncture. To expand the availability of such facilities, there are several factors to consider; first, making it cost and market competitive for freight forwarders to establish AFSs and airports to transfer ULDs (unit load devices) to freight forwarders and secondly, reviewing and implementing regulations around cargo handling, staging and storage freight outside the airport.
DHL Global Forwarding operates its own cargo handling facilities in all major cities across continents. We receive the airline ULD, handle the break bulk and stage them according to individual cargo characteristics. All these facilities are TAPA-certified and well equipped with security features, capable of building break bulk import cargo with dedicated pallets and break down positions. Equally, these facilities have different chambers to cater to the various temperature needs of freight. They facilitate conditioning of packing materials as well, so as to support passive cooling solutions for different types of cold chain cargo movements. All these facilities operate with the latest warehousing digital solutions to track the location of freight at any given point in time. Furthermore, we have customised vehicles to transport airline ULD, like roller bedded trucks, which are equipped with forklifts, hand trollies, etc. All these facilities are also monitored by CCTV at specific intervals with the objective of using the footage for continuous improvement of processes.
While Indian airports differ from one another in the provision of such facilities, the main differences include the daily maintenance of warehouses, and the mindset for freight-handling. These warehouse/AFS have Customs bonded areas for both exports and imports and customs officers are co-housed.
Due to the multiuser facilities and increased flow of cargo at Indian airports, higher than what it was intended for, the lack of AFSs is leading to several hindrances. These include instances of truck congestion, malfunctioning of x-ray machines, workforce disruptions, shortage of handling equipment, fewer number of trained professionals to screen the cargo, etc. Often, the storage facilities of the cargo hold area are sheds and not ideal warehouses in the true sense. The turnaround time of freight differs from airport to airport and is unusually long during month end and quarter end, and sometimes even during weekends. This causes greater idling time for trucks in the airport thereby increasing the cost for forwarders, all of which are wasteful expenses that can be avoided.
What if this project gets through in India
If the project gets through, DHL would definitely look into setting up our own facilities in phases. Our customers will benefit from the improvement in turnaround time, safety, elimination of damages and pilferages. With DHL Global Forwarding building airline ULD for export cargo, our exporters will benefit because their customers will receive the freight with less damages and pilferages. We can derive cost competitiveness from these operations over a period of time which would benefit customers too.
We believe it is our responsibility to ensure the safety and intactness of the freight from pick up of the cargo at the seller’s facility till we hand it over to the buyer at destination. With this mindset, we would be able to provide the customer all that he needs; visibility, smooth documentation with monitoring all the way through and managing exceptions with fast track actions in case of deviations from the initial plans. A robust Airfreight Station network in India is the missing link, breaking the supply chain, and we look forward to it becoming a reality soon.
