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T E C H N O L O G Y W I L L E N S U R E A I R C A R G O S TA K E H O L D E R S T O M O V E F O R W A R D Volume III n No 8

C A R G O

OCTOBER 2014 I `60

L O G I S T I C S

ABC OF ‘BUILDING BRIDGES’ 2014 will see Volga-Dnepr Group’s AirBridgeCargo Airlines achieve another cargo-carrying record on its tenth anniversary

EXCLUSIVE

LAST MILE TO DESPAIR The mining ban in Goa has devastated the logistics sector associated with it

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MANAGING EDITOR’s NOTE

Speed up to remain relevant

f there was a takeaway from the recent Air Cargo Forum in Seoul, it was a desire for collaboration between the stakeholders of the air cargo industry. Indeed, the enthusiasm to cooperate and face the challenges together called for a pretty picture – that, incidentally, the ACF opening session provided. Along with the top bosses from The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA), the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) and the World Customs Organisation (WCO) were represented. Together, the call came for the air cargo industry to work with the regulators to ensure safe and reliable deliveries. “Collaboration is key. It is a long road, but it is an exciting one and one we can be proud of,” said Oliver Evans, TIACA Chairman. Carrying forward that rallying cry of collaboration, Glyn Hughes, the Global Head of Cargo at IATA, pointed out that the time had come for the air cargo industry to reduce as much as 48 hours off transit times to survive from the present six-day (on an average) process. Without mincing his words, Hughes said that the reduction in time was needed for the survival of the industry going forward. And, he dangled a sword: “Without it (the slashing of transit time), modal shift will accelerate. We have no alternative. This industry has survived for 103 years, and we want to secure the next 103 years.” Perhaps, no one could have been more forthright than Michael Steen, former TIACA Chairman who said that there was a “need to cut away everything that doesn’t add value, whether in the handling process, or using more automation.” Are air cargo stakeholders around the world serious enough to put the ‘Slash 48-hour’ desire into effect. In fact, IATA has been talking about it for a long time. We had heard the affable Des Vertannes (Glyn

Hughes’ predecessor at IATA) talk seriously about it at a number of forums. However, every time the debate has occurred, freight forwarders and airlines have been at loggerheads. While the carriers have maintained that cargo could move faster, forwarders have emphasized that reliability was of prime importance – not speed. The debate may continue but can solutions be found? Why is it that cargo stakeholders remain wary about bringing in change? Why are legacy technological systems still being used? While the principle of ‘one size fits all’ cannot be used for all the players in the chain, there is a simple cure to the problem and that is information or rather the lack of it. Every link in the whole chain should be responsible enough to provide information at the right place and at the right time. Take, for instance, the case of CASS (Cargo Account Settlement Systems). Many of our forwarders are determined not to go for it – whatever their reasons might be. On one hand, IATA in its efforts to bring in paperless freight has persisted saying that CASS has been designed to simplify the billing and settling of accounts between airlines and freight forwarders, small forwarders have stayed out often leading to acrimonious exchanges at public forums. However, now that most airlines have resorted to CASS, forwarders have had to follow suit. The general feeling among forwarders is that e-Freight will not reduce the paper trail. It is time our air cargo stakeholders woke up to the changes that have been taking place not only around the world but nearer home in Dubai, Hong Kong or Singapore. It is time also for TIACA to take upon itself to educate the air cargo community about the merits of e-Freight. Only then will we, from this part of the world, be able to slice away 48 hours. tghosh@newsline.in

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

contents ARTICLES NEWS VIEWS EDITS INTERVIEWS CLIPPINGS PROFILES NEWS DIGEST STATISTICS COLUMNS

CONTENTS

C&L

VOLUME III n NO 8

Editor-in-Chief

K SRINIVASAN Managing Editor TIRTHANKAR GHOSH Consulting Editor RAMESH KUMAR Senior Sub-Editor-cum-Reporter PUNIT MISHRA

COVER STORY

p12

The mining ban in Goa has given birth to varied concerns for different sections of society. While the mine owners have been hit hard, the section that is facing torrid times is the logistics industry. Trucks and dumpers are lying idle and those who bought them do not have the means to pay off the loans.

FOCUS

p19

The International Air Cargo Association’s (TIACA) Air Cargo Forum (ACF) at Seoul called the air cargo industry to come together and work closely with regulators to deliver safe, reliable and efficient global trade.

TECH

p20

AirBridgeCargo Airlines provides its customers a reduction in transit times and improved connectivity for the airlines network. ABC has been awarded the ‘Best Cargo Airline’ Golden Chariot award at a ceremony in Berlin that is recognised as the ‘Oscars’ of the transport industry.

Correspondents ANJANA TANWAR, NAVEED ANJUM, CHARCHIT SINGH Designers NAGENDER DUBEY, MOHIT KANSAL Picture Editor PRADEEP CHANDRA Photo Editor HC TIWARI Staff Photographer HEMANT RAWAT Director (Admin & Corporate Affairs) RAJIV SINGH

With air cargo on the upswing once again, it is imperative for air cargo stakeholders to chalk out plans to switch to internationally recognised programmes like e-Frieght and Cargo 2000 by improving their IT systems.

SPOTLIGHT

Sr. Proof Reader RAJESH VAID

Vice President (Business Development) VINOD KAUL Subscription GEETA JENA, JUHI ROHILLA Distribution PANKAJ KUMAR, BHUSAN KUMAR Executive Director RENU MITTAL For advertising and sales enquiries, please contact:

NEWS IN BRIEF

Tiruchi International Airport is all set to export more cargo as Malindo Air has started its cargo operations from the airport. In the land section, Amazon has signed a deal with Patel Logistics for domestic deliveries.

+91-9810030533, 9810159332 Editorial & Marketing office: News Kingdom Media Pvt. Ltd., 20, Nizamuddin West Market, Nizamuddin West, New Delhi –110 013, Tel: +91-11-41033381-82 All information in C&L is derived from sources we consider reliable. It is passed on to our readers without any responsibility on our part. Opinions/views expressed by third parties in abstract or in interviews are not necessarily shared by us. Material appearing in the magazine cannot be reproduced in whole or in part(s) without prior permission. The publisher assumes no responsibility for material lost or damaged in transit. The publisher reserves the right to refuse, withdraw or otherwise deal with all advertisements without explanation. All advertisements must comply with the Indian Advertisements Code. The publisher will not be liable for any loss caused by any delay in publication, error or failure of advertisement to appear. Owned and published by K Srinivasan 4C Pocket- IV, Mayur Vihar Phase–I, Delhi–91 and printed by him at Nutech Photolithographers, B–240, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase–I, New Delhi–110020.

Cover Design: Nagender Dubey Cover Photos: Sarada Vishnubhatla and Volga-Dnepr

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

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JUST IN TIME

KUEHNE + NAGEL

AIRFREIGHT VOLUMES GO UP IN AUGUST

lobal air freight markets showed continued robust growth in air cargo volumes in August, according to the latest data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA). Measured by freight-tonne-kilometers (FTKs), volumes rose 5.1 per cent in August 2014, compared to August 2013, while capacity grew at a slower pace of 3.4 per cent from the previous year. This is the second consecutive strong month for cargo volumes, following the 6.1 per cent year-onyear rise recorded in July. “The outlook for air cargo is clearly getting better. However, there are some limiting factors on the extent of potential gains. Demand for air cargo is growing more slowly than global economic activity. Businesses are reported to have more confidence in the future, but the list of political and economic risks continues to moderate how that confidence translates into actual activity,” said Tony Tyler, IATA’s Director General and CEO. Carriers in all regions reported an expansion in volumes. African airlines led the pack with the strongest growth of air cargo demand – 9.2 per cent year-on-year – with capacity growth of 4.2 per cent. Although this was the second consecutive month of strong growth, the volatility of African data, coupled with the slowdown in key African economies such as South Africa, IATA said

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

it was too soon to understand the extent to which this represented a real and sustainable acceleration. Middle Eastern carriers enjoyed cargo growth of 7.8 per cent, although the pace was a little below the year-to-date average of 9.6 per cent. The Middle East continued to expand strongly on its growing links to developing markets, as well as diversifying into important commodities such as perishables. Capacity was up 6.0 per cent. Asia Pacific carriers grew 6.3 per cent and capacity expanded by 4.4 per cent, continuing the acceleration of recent months. Emerging Asia trade volumes expanded volumes solidly in June and July. North American carriers increased air freight volumes by a solid 5.5 per cent compared to a year ago. A rebound in business activity following the weakness in the first quarter and positive underlying economic growth trends should support stronger growth in the coming months, IATA said. Capacity, however, fell slightly, by 0.4 per cent. European airlines grew by just 1.4 per cent, while capacity expanded by 4.8 per cent. Economic activity within the Eurozone continued to deteriorate, IATA noted, although the latest data showed a moderate pick-up in imports and exports. EU sanctions as a result of the Russia-Ukraine crisis also continued to affect demand, the group added.

TREND FedEx Corp. recently announced the launch of FedEx Global Returns, a shipping solution designed to simplify the worldwide returns process. The solution offers retailers enhanced ability to manage their customers’ returns experience, including editable return labels, customs documentation and flexible return destinations via FedEx Express or FedEx Ground. “FedEx Global Returns puts the shipper in control,” said Raj Subramaniam, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Communications at FedEx. “Our customers now have a one-stop solution that in turn allows them to offer their customers an efficient, automated and flexible returns process backed by the reliability of FedEx,” he added. Retailers using FedEx Global Returns can choose a return location anywhere FedEx delivers. Through return-specific reporting in FedEx Tracking, customers will know what is coming back to them so they can reduce downtime, shrink spare parts inventory, control costs, improve recovery rates, plan staffing and comply with their service-level agreements. When a return is underway, customers will have visibility into the shipment, allowing them to know when a return label has not been used, or the location of a return shipment in transit. This data can be accessed for up to two years, giving businesses the opportunity to analyse their global supply chains for maximum efficiency. It also gives shippers the option of creating return labels and customs documents at the same time as an outbound shipment, or creating them just for the return leg. Return labels and customs documents can be hard copies or electronic, and if the shipper chooses electronic labels, these can be edited by the returning party as well. FedEx Global Returns is supported by the global network and international expertise of FedEx.

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JUST IN TIME

Boeing forecasts growth in airfreight in 20 years

lobal air cargo traffic will double in the next 20 years, enjoying annual growth of 4.7 per cent as international trade picks up after a long period of stagnation, US aerospace giant Boeing predicted. Boeing also said it expects its air freight traffic to more than double by 2033. Carriers will buy 840 new freighter planes valued at $240 billion in the next 20 years on a revival in air-freight traffic, Boeing said in a statement. Airlines will also convert 1,330 passenger planes to freighter versions in that time. The US plane manufacturer also expected 70 per cent of the 840 new air freighters to be large planes, such as the 747-8 and 777, which can carry more than 80 tons of cargo in a single takeoff. Major airline operators were severely hit by the global financial crisis in 2008 and, despite a rebound in 2010, worldwide air cargo traffic has remained flat in recent years. But Boeing, in its biennial World Air Cargo Forecast released at the industry expo in Seoul, said traffic had grown 4.4 per cent on-year from January to July this year. “We see strong signs of a recov-

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

“It is a matter of survival for the industry. If you lose touch and no longer provide the solutions that your customers are looking for, then it will accelerate modal shift where other transport operators will say if air cargo cannot provide what the shipper community is looking for, we will.” GLYN HUGHES Global Head of Cargo, The International Air Cargo Association on the cost of implementing an IATA goal of cutting 48 hours out of the air cargo supply chain

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

ery as air freight traffic levels continue to strengthen after several years of stagnation,” said Randy Tinseth, Vice President of Marketing at Boeing’s Commercial Airplanes. “The air cargo market is now growing at nearly the long-term rates,” he said in a statement. The new Boeing forecast shows Asia-North America and Europe-Asia will continue to be the dominant world air cargo markets with the

most traffic volume. Intra-Asia, domestic China and Asia-North America markets are expected to have the fastest rates of growth over the next 20 years. Air cargo traffic increased 4.5 per cent in the first eight months of this year, according to the International Air Transport Association. Asia-Pacific carriers, which make up for 39 per cent of the global air-freight market, posted a 5.2 per cent rise in demand.

e-AWB penetration sets record

ugust set the record for the fastest month for e-AWB growth: at 2 per cent globally. Adoption speed is now four times that of the same period last year. There are now 20 airlines that have achieved over 20 per cent e-AWB penetration, compared with only seven at the start of the year. In airports such as Hong Kong, Singapore, Doha, Addis Ababa and Dubai, e-AWB penetration now exceeds the 50 per cent mark, while many other airports show penetrations in the range of 30 and 40 per cent. The top 10 airlines that contributed to the sharp rise include South Africa Airlines, Saudi Arabia Airlines, EgyptAir, SriLankan, Delta Airlines, United Airlines, China Airlines, Air France, Air Canada, and IAG. Contributing to this acceleration were the joint industry initiatives launched in the Nordics, India, USA, Germany and others helped in accelerating the

e-AWB adoption. It is expected that e-AWB adoption will even grow further as more than 77 airlines and 1,300 freight forwarders already signed up for the initiative. Guillaume Drucy, head of cargo e-business management, IATA, said: “2014 is turning out to be a pretty good year for air cargo growth and for e-AWB as well. This is demonstrating our collective commitment to modernize air cargo. Let’s keep the momentum going!” Meanwhile, Qatar Airways Cargo and Qatar Customs also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the use of e-AWB. The document was signed by Qatar Airways Chief Officer Cargo, Ulrich Ogiermann and Mohammed Ahmed Al Mohannadi, Operations and Risk Analysis Department Manager of Customs in the presence of senior officials from both companies.

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NUMBERS

`17,000 20th CR NEEDED TO EXPAND PORT CAPACITY

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) recently said that an investment of over `17,000 crore is needed to expand port capacity by over 140 million tonnes (mt) from the current level of about 690 mt, which could help the country’s seaborne trade to surpass 830 mt by 2016-17. According to the industry body, private sector participation was very important for this level of investment. “Lack of a level playing field for private operators, hinterland connectivity, especially lack of coordination between road, rail and port authorities, and lack of proper risk allocation were some of the key issues affecting port development in the country,” D S Rawat, Secretary-General of Assocham, said.

CARRIERS FINED

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed fines of $430,000 on five companies – British Airways, FedEx, American Eagle Airlines, and two unnamed non-airline companies – for alleged violations of safety regulations regarding the transport of hazardous materials. $195,000 was the largest single fine in the FAA announcement against British Airways for asking its partner, American Airlines, to ship an oxygen generator from London to Dallas on August 14, 2012. Transport of such highly flammable devices had been banned before that date. FAA proposed another $65,000 fine against FedEx for allegedly failing to inspect a package containing two paint cans, one of which leaked during transit. The unnamed two companies were handed out fines totaling $111,600 for allegedly failing to declare various flammable liquids that were shipped as air cargo.

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

ANNIVERSARY OF BELUGA

Beluga cargo is celebrating 20 years of transporting Airbus component parts between Airbus’ European manufacturing sites. Named after the white Beluga whale because of its shape, the aircraft made its maiden flight on September 13, 1994. Since 1995, the fleet of five Beluga aircraft replaced the aging Super Guppy transporters in order to supply the Airbus final assembly lines in Toulouse and Hamburg. Today, more than 60 flights are performed each week between 11 sites, carrying crucial parts for all of the Airbus programmes, including the A380. The Beluga fleet is operated by Airbus Transport International (ATI), an Airbus subsidiary airline, and each Beluga crew is composed of a pilot, a co-pilot and a flight engineer. With the production start of the A350 XWB in 2012 and the production ramp-up on other Airbus programmes, the Beluga activities again will substantially increase over the next five years. “The Beluga is an essential element of Airbus’ integrated logistics and production ‎system. It is thanks to its reliability and engagement of the Beluga teams that we can fulfil our constant pursuit of efficiency”, said Günter Butschek, Airbus Chief Operating Officer. rnairlines Inte Cargolux A tly transported n tional rece ut of ce ever o tor ie p st ie v ro en n its hea o -t 8 d: a 4 Switzerlan equip a generator intended to orea. The massive K in South ok 12 aircraft poto t en m ip the dedish d required full team an s n sitio a f o tion cated atten ecialists including sp e iz ts u o Ground of s dedicated t as well e’ in rl the ai en tm g depar Engineerin rs, crane operators, te as m ad lo ng agent as ers, handli embourg, v ri d truck x u L GO in LuxairCAR g agent Asiana at the n li d an h and in Seoul. destination g heavy, dense in “Carry ages such osed pack cargo in cl s or crates requires er as contain y efforts to ensure ar in rd ao tr wn in forex craft tie-do d up diir -a n o safe an t h g left, ri ward, aft, we can only secure as , n io have no ct re ackage and the outer p n what happens to o influence when exposed to dyt n te n co said Okan the lerations,” namic acce Cargolux’ Country Akpinar, witzerland. Manager, S

TONNE ROTOR TRANSPORTED BY CARGOLUX

NUMBERS

PER CENT JUMP IN FREIGHT EARNINGS FOR SCR

South Central Railway (SCR) showed a 16 per cent jump in freight earnings to `3,966 crore for the April-September period of the current financial year. Earnings stood at `3,430 crore during the same period last year. In freight loading, the Zone saw a seven per cent rise surpass-

eight per cent jump in April-September at 29.9 MT, as against 27.7 MT for the same period last fiscal. Coal loading from Singareni Collieries in Telangana witnessed an 18 per cent growth at 16.2 MT during the April-September period, as against 13.7 MT last year. Cement loading was up eight

ing the Railway Board’s target too. It has achieved 55.7 million tonnes of originating freight loading against the target of 54.8 mt set by Railway Board. Segment-wise, loading of coal saw an

per cent at 14.8 MT, when compared with 13.7 MT for the corresponding period last year. Foodgrains’ contribution to the freight stood at 3 MT and fertilisers at 2.1 MTs during the six-month period.

9.9

PER CENT INCREASE IN DHL’S GLOBAL CHARGES

DHL Express has announced a 9.9 per cent increase in rates for India for delivery of time-definite international products, with effect from January 1, 2015. India is one of the countries that will see the steepest increase, as globally DHL’s rates will go up by 5-10 per cent. “DHL’s annual rate increase is driven by the continuous investments made in the country to support growth and improve quality despite the impact of inflation on input costs. We are also faced with the added pressure of the depreciating rupee but are committed to continuously improve our service quality to our customers,” said RS Subramanian, SVP & MD, India, DHL Express. The company handled 11 million shipments in India in 2013, and expects to close 2014 with double-digit growth.

METRE DRAUGHT AT MAJOR PORTS

The Union government has asked the Major Ports to deepen their draught to 18 metres. The move has been taken to allow bigger ships to dock. Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) proposed to deepen its draught in the second phase of dredging from the existing 14 metres, for which it has decided to appoint a consultant to prepare a detailed project report (DPR). Major Ports have draughts of less than 10 metres, which is inadequate to handle higher capacity ships such as Capesize and containerships having capacity of 8,000 Twenty Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) and above that are increasingly being put to use worldwide.

`1,630

CR CONTRACT TO L&T

L&T Construction has won a contract worth `1630 crore from the Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority. The order is for the construction of a six-lane access controlled expressway from Unnao district (village Neval) to Lucknow. L&T’s scope includes design, engineering and construction of the 63km-long expressway, including the construction of service roads. The contract also includes major structures like 18 VUPs (Vehicular Under Passes), four major bridges, 10 minor bridges, 26 pedestrian underpasses, one trumpet interchange and associated works. The project is scheduled to be completed within 36 months.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

COVER STORY

L ast mile to despair

It’s the second anniversary since the mining ban in Goa. The ban has given birth to varied concerns for different sections of society. On one hand, the mine owners are worried about renewal of leases and policies for the mining industry, industries like steel have been going hungry minus the supply of iron ore and environmentalists are struggling to help stabilize Goa’s fragile ecosystem, and on the other, the Goan mining and ore export houses are upto their teeth in trying to keep their businesses alive. In all this, the ones who manage logistics – the backbone of any society — are meted out indifferent treatment by one and all. Sarada Vishnubhatla in Goa explores the human fallout of the mining ban and finds out that logistics has been given a rough hand – what with truck owners, especially small fleet owners, bearing the brunt of tough times. Will the restart of mining combined with new policies find them in better stead? 12

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

COVER STORY

SORRY STATE-OF-AFFAIRS: (L-R) Trucks in a dilipadated state in Goa

t first glance, he looked like any regular youngster. But soon, I realized I was mistaken. A small group of worried-looking truck owners and I were sitting for tea and sweet buns at the local tea shop in green and rain-soaked mining town, Savarde, in Sattari Taluk, North Goa. A sleeveless yellow and red sports jersey and Bermuda-clad man wearing his salt and pepper hair in a ponytail walked past us saying to my host, “Whatever you are saying is of no use.” At my confused look, the middle-aged truck owner i.e. my host,

refusing to be named, informed me that the man belonged to the local mafia group. News sure had spread fast about his meeting a journalist. Owner of three trucks, my host calls himself the most vociferous protestor of the mining ban in Goa since it was imposed in September 2012, “I am already infamous and I have been threatened many times for my protests.” Hence he wished the talk with him and his group of small fleet owners be kept off the record. Opposite the tea shop, nestled in the rocky yet green mountainside, was a petrol pump. It was still raining in soft sheets. Except for one or two tipper trucks carrying a load of coal or returning empty, the roads were nearly deserted. That was when and where I met Swamini. A local reporter for a Mumbai daily, Swamini, had a few moments ago received news about a fire accident from the local fire station. As she waited hoping to catch some kind of transport, she worried her lip over options available to her. Not for the choice of transport but on how to ensure a successful future for her two small children

— a constant worry in her head. At my prodding, 34-year old Swamini broke into a bright smile, pulled back her slender shoulders and shared with me her fifth standard school-going daughter’s aspirations, “My daughter learns Bharatanatyam and keertans. To enable our children learn different things, we require money to pay the fees. Where can we bring all this money from? We are forced to cut down on many things in our lives to fulfill these needs for our children.” Her 40-year-old husband, Ramakant, has one truck which found good business when mining in Goa was on till September 2012. Since then it has been Swamini supporting her lower middle-class family, “We have suffered huge losses due to the ban on mining in the last two years. It is my salary with which I run my household,” said Swamini. Sachchidananda (name changed), one of the group’s members, was mostly kept quiet during our interaction. My host informs me that the 22 year old’s father had died of stress-related heart condition barely

Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, on the eve of the second anniversary of the ban had notified a debt relief scheme for the loanees in the form of OTS or One Time Settlement with banks which is still subject to the approval of the Reserve Bank of India.The only relief the fleet owners received during the ban was from a nationalized bank which offered 25-50 per cent waiver to the loanees.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

COVER STORY

a month ago and he had inherited the legacy of debt and no income situation. A qualified professional from ITI, Sachchidananda has been unable to find work. The growing debt was giving him sleepless nights along with the responsibility of taking care of the entire household and an inconsolable mother. During my meeting with the General Manager of the All Goa Truck Owners Association, Neelkanth Gawas too lamented, “I had 20 vehicles and bought one wheel loader. Within three months mining was banned. I had bought the wheel loader for `1.9 crore and I could earn back only `10 lakhs from it. The wheel loader is languishing in my backyard now.” Stuck in a limbo, the truck owners are finding it hard to make ends meet for themselves whereas the ones at the helm of affairs – the mine owners – have always played safe. According to them, “Earlier, people did not have money so the company gave them trucks… the villagers were happy they had trucks and money. There was no problem. But what happened in the next 20 years? The company has not invested a single paisa in mining equipment, they hired everything… from barges to machinery to trucks. Financially, it made no difference to them.” The official wisdom agrees with that but the two year period of ban has revealed that the truck owners were actually fending for themselves and the ban has left them high and dry. Amidst all this when approached for an interview Glenn Kalavampara, Secretary, Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association, insisted on sharing only an off-the-record personal viewpoint regarding the fallout of mining ban and logistics. Definitely, the issue has made the officials of mine-owning communities and the Goa Chambers of Commerce and Industry very cagey and uncomfortable forcing them to offer nothing more than run-ofthe-mill answers. In the meantime, my host and his group wonder aloud why the government, instead of the mine owners, pay them ‘muaavza’ or compensation when it is the mine owners with whom they have worked for a long time. Another single truck owner jeered, “They think they are doing us a great favour by paying us a princely sum of `8000 a month.” With loan interest rising by the passing day and their main business interest

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

barges and carried to the port for loading to the mother vessel. There were more than 20,000 trucks and about 400 barges available for movement of iron ore and since the ban in mining they all are out of business.

“WE MUST LEARN TO USE OUR RESOURCES MORE JUIDICIOUSLY” Narayan R Bandekar, President, Goa Chamber of Commerce and Industry, President – Goa Mining Association and Member, Managing Committee of Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association, on the disruption in logistics

WITH MINING RESTARTING, HOW DO YOU PLAN TO TAKE CARE OF ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY, AS A MINE OWNER YOURSELF? The intervention of the Supreme Court was very much necessary to stop the plunder and its impact on the state’s fragile ecology. No doubt, this sudden ban has had a severe and adverse impact on the socio-economic climate of Goa. We must now learn to use our natural resources more judiciously and explore new avenues of development while striking a balance between economy and environment.

HOW MANY TRUCKS WERE EMPLOYED BEFORE THE BAN? The local trucks are used to shift the iron ore from the mines to the jetties (loading point) and from there it is loaded in the

DURING THE BAN THERE WAS OBVIOUSLY NO SUPPLY TO PREVIOUSLY SIGNED CONTRACTS WITH INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL CLIENTS. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CONTRACTS AND HOW WERE THEY HANDLED? The Chamber will not be in a position to respond to the question. The contract is between the Purchaser and the Exporter and the Chamber is not involved in such commercial transactions. After the ban on mining the individual exporter has to take his own call as to how to handle the contracts with his purchasers.

taken out of their hands, most small fleet owners have approached the local MLAs, the Chief Minister’s office and mine owners umpteen number of times seeking balanced distribution of financial help for all the truck owners and operators. Single truck owners were promised `8000 per month as compensation and `12,000 for two trucks. Some owners received a few lakhs of rupees while others are still waiting to be recognized as sufferers. One small fleet owner said, “They give you only so much money to feed your family. Even the way the compensation was distributed… you either got it or were totally ignored depending upon the party you support.” My host listening to his truck own-

er friend jumped up, “Tell me what work will I get at this age? I have reopened my small ancestral shop but it has been a long time since it was closed. You give me work, any work and I will do it. Can you give me work?” Sachchidananda does not know how to repay his debt to the bank. According to the latest Budget announced by the government at the Centre and Reserve Bank of India’s directives, banks were instructed not to offer waiver on debts. Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, on the eve of the second anniversary of the ban had notified a debt relief scheme for the loanees in the form of OTS or One Time Settlement with banks which is still subject to the approval of the

COVER STORY

Glenn Kalavampara

NO WORK: Truck owners are bearing the brunt of tough times since the mining ban in Goa

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

Reserve Bank of India. The only relief the fleet owners received during the ban was from a nationalized bank which offered 2550 per cent waiver to the loanees. Gawas remembers painfully, “I had taken a loan of `1.5 crore. I sold off jewellery belonging to my wife, mother, my brother’s wife… the entire family came together to pool in money and gave it to me. I got 50 per cent waiver on the loan from the bank and I paid back `75 lakhs and I had only one month to do so.” Still, Swamini hangs on with the hope of mining re-starting and her husband gaining business but is also afraid of the cost involved in getting their truck back on to the road, “Even if we wish to put our truck to use elsewhere, it is not feasible. Why? Because we will get only ``2000-`3000 … besides the roads in bad conditions damage the tyres and then to get our trucks repaired we will have to spend `25,000-`30,000. Where will we get that kind of money?” Another small fleet owner shows me a dusty truck which has vines and shrubs growing out of its roof and windows since it has remained parked there for more than 18 months now and says, “To get this on to the road, it will cost us no less than a lakh of rupees. It is not feasible at all for us.” Those who had pieces of arable land left in the family went back to farming but others are at odds since they are neither educated enough to look for work nor have the talent to make money or have land to till. A medium-sized fleet owner explains the psychology of a truck owner family, “The mentality of truck owners in Goa has been such that if the father is a truck owner and if his son has failed in school then he will give his son his vehicle and ask him to go for it. Children are not educated. If the

COVER STORY

Neelkanth Gawas

child was educated, if he was an engineer he could have begun a factory or even if he was ITI-trained then also he could have done something. But the truck owners have never thought of saving money for future use, they always only thought of expanding this business and when suddenly the mining was banned it was as if Tsunami had hit us and we were left with nothing. We did not even have an alternate source.” Then how does some one like Gawas manage in these tough times, I asked. Gawas responded, “I have some agricultural land, I have coconut and cashew plantations. I run a beer bar. My son dropped out of school after his SSC to study mining diploma. He got 75 per cent marks and I took him to Belgaum. I had to pay `3 lakhs as donation, then `1.5 lakhs more for hostel fee, tuition fees, food, and the like. I may be able to manage but what will others do? Most of the small fleet owners do not have the money to run their households, How will they send their children to schools?” When it was in full swing, the mining industry in Goa was contributing roughly 25 per cent of the state’s GDP generating close to `1500 crores annually. The industry at its peak was able to pay four times the amount as taxes and export duties. But Gawas challenges this by giving example of one major exporter, “Sesa Goa paid `19 crore to the government in the year 2004 and they earned `573 crore. In 2005, they paid `26 crore and earned `1424 crore. By the year 2010, they paid `293 crore as taxes to the government but earned `570 crore. What have they done for Goa with that money? Has the company opened an institute or a hospital? Nothing. Supreme Court has declared that the mining done during 2007 and 2012 as illegal and 186 million tonne iron ore was sold. The land is ours, they reside in America, Switzerland… they deal with China and Japan from there only… vehicles are ours, machines are ours,

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TOUGH TIME: Group of truck owners discusing their sorry plights on the streets of Goa

labour is ours, land is ours but they earn 62 per cent profit… what have they given us?” The Central Empowered Committee (CEC) set up by Supreme Court during its study of the mismanagement in mining in Goa had observed severe gaps on part of the government in the mining industry which led to `35000 crore worth of illegal mining. The Justice Shah Commission had indicted politicians, bureaucrats and mining companies for colluding and allowing illegalities to continue. The report submitted included issues like illegal use of forest land under illegal environmental clearances, slip-ups in transit permits issued by forest and state mining departments, lack of verification before royalty payment, and no periodical verification of iron ore production in mining leases, mining without license and the like. The Supreme Court held all dumping of reject from ore processing outside the lease area as illegal. Gawas explains, “Most of the exports since 2007 went from the dumps. The grade of the material dumped would be maximum 40. So to be able to export to country like China, they would mix mineral ore obtained from Karnataka and bring up the grade to 50. With the increase in exports came more money and villagers, who once upon a time did not even own a bicycle, started buying trucks. With so much money, other members of the society and adminis-

tration also bought trucks. So the number of vehicles which was originally between 4000-5000 went upto a total of 27, 600 vehicles in Goa. With everyone in Goa owning trucks, there was severe deficit of drivers. So, we had to hire drivers from Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Manipur, Rajasthan... Even these drivers had often fooled the truck owners by plying my truck for someone else. So they also made more money. Once they had money, they also bought trucks in six months. This way we did not have drivers in Goa at one point.” So, could it be that much of the illegally earned money of the `35000 crore was obtained by unaccounted sale of dumps to eager ‘buyers’? Caught in a tight corner, the truck owner community now only wishes for the mining to re-start even if it is with a cap of 20 million tonne extraction, as against 40 million tonnes earlier, to be mined out with precaution in a year. But for mining to actually start again will require new leases complete with fresh environmental clearances to be obtained by the mine owners, which may be a time consuming affair. So for this section of the society, it is a foregone conclusion that they have to find alternate sources of income. The sweet bun suddenly turns rancid… indeed, it is not sweet anymore for the small fleet owners in Goa. Photos: Sarada Vishnubhatla

FOCUS

UNITY AND CO-OPERATION: The TIACA Air Cargo Forum opened with a traditional Korean welcome ceremony in Seoul. (Left to right) Doug Brittin, Secretary General, TIACA, Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary General, WCO, Raymond Benjamin, Secretary General ICAO, the newly-appointed president and CEO of Incheon Airport, Wan-su Park, Suh Seoung-hwan, Minister of Land, Infrastructure & Transport, Korea, Oliver Evans, Chairman, TIACA, Enno Osinga, Vice Chairman, TIACA.Centre

he air cargo industry must work closely with regulators to deliver safe, reliable, efficient global trade, delegates at the recent The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA)’s Air Cargo Forum heard at Seoul. TIACA took to the stage with the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) and the World Customs Organization (WCO) to pledge closer collaboration at the opening session of the three-day Forum and Exposition. “The industry is facing unprecedented challenges and unprecedented opportunities, we must face them together,” said Oliver Evans, TIACA Chairman. “Collaboration is key. It is a long road, but it is an exciting one and one we can be proud of.” Evans was joined by WCO Secretary General Kunio Mikuriya and ICAO Secretary General Raymond Benjamin at the plenary session, the first of eleven workshops and panels covering issues from advance data to security and training. “Air trade is an essential enabler of global connectivity, but we need to forge practical partnerships and solutions,” Benjamin told delegates. Referring to the rapid expansion of air cargo transport, accelerated by e-com-

Collaborate to counter challenges The International Air Cargo Association’s recent Air Cargo Forum at Seoul called for more cooperation among stakeholders if they wanted to ensure air cargo to regain its prominence merce, and its resulting challenges and opportunities, Secretary General Mikuriya talked about Customs’ contribution to enhanced economic competitiveness through efficient border procedures. While committing the WCO to continuously work on implementing trade facilitation measures, supported by the WTO Trade Facilitation

Agreement, he also stressed the importance of security as a component of economic competitiveness. For this purpose, he invited all the relevant stakeholders, including the air cargo industry, to engage in enhanced dialogue and collaboration, as enshrined in the SAFE Framework of Standards and its draft revision, which would enable Customs to perform more effective risk management through access to the relevant data at an early stage of the supply chain. Mikuriya and Benjamin met with the TIACA Board earlier as part of a continued collaboration between the organizations. “Getting information at an early stage, preferably pre-loading, is vital to deciding what approach is needed to high-risk cargo,” said Mikuriya. “That is why we have started working closely with the industry and ICAO and we are trying to find synergies to avoid duplication between supply chain partners.” The conference was opened with a speech by Suh Seoung-hwan, Minister of Land, Infrastructure & Transport, Korea, and a welcome from Wan-su Park, the newly appointed President and Chairman of ACF host Incheon Airport. Some 3,000 experts from the industry exchanged comments at the forum and exhibition. “The Asia-Pacific region, including Korea, makes up 40 per cent of the world’s air cargo volume and continuous growth is expected,” Suh Seoung-hwan, Korea Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said in a welcome address at the opening ceremony. “The Korean government provides fast arrival, departure and customs procedures for smooth trade of air cargo, as well as logistics complexes near the airport.” Customs officers from several WCO Members participated in the Forum as contributors to the workshop on connecting Customs with commerce around the world, aimed at entering into dialogue and improving cooperation with the air cargo industry. TIACA had announced plans for a series of industry-specific workshops at its Air Cargo Forum (ACF) in Seoul, Korea. Over 2000 registered to attend the ACF in Seoul this week, visiting over 120 exhibitors and attending 11 workshops and panels on topics from advance data and security, to training and Customs’ issues.

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SPOTLIGHT

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SPOTLIGHT

World’s bridge builder This is the tenth year of AirBridgeCargo Airlines’ existence. In this short span of time, the carrier has built a reputation that is difficult to emulate. Today, its corporate culture is ready and the cargo carrier is ready for the leap to the next exciting state of its development

hen AirBridgeCargo Airlines won the award in ‘Best All Cargo Carrier’ category at the 28th Asian Freight & Supply Chain Awards (AFSCA) at Shanghai in June this year, it emphasized that the carrier had put in a lot of hard work in Asia. Denis Ilyin, Executive President of AirBridgeCargo Airlines pointed out that the award was a “recognition from our customers is the result of our team’s hard work in Asia and other countries of the world supported by Volga-Dnepr Group as well as our commitment to improving the quality

of our services”. Asia, he said, was one of the key markets for AirBridgeCargo and the carrier planned to strengthen its positions in the region. Starting from October 1, ABC has increased its scheduled flights from Moscow to Tokyo’s Narita Airport and on the onward connection to Seoul, Korea, to three services a week. The extra frequencies reflect ABC’s growth in the Asia Pacific region and extend its commitment to the Japanese and Korean air cargo and manufacturing markets, which began in 2007 and 2010, respectively. “Asia Pacific as a whole is vital for Volga-Dnepr Group with three of the world’s top five economies located in the region. We see fundamental changes in APAC, with the constantly growing importance and influence of Asian economies as well as increasing intra-Asian trade and fast-growing consumer demand,” said Anton Khodakovskiy, Volga-Dnepr Group’s Vice President, Japan and South Korea. The new services will help ABC’s customers to meet increased consumer demand, especially in the automotive sector. Over the last eight months, ABC’s tonnage

from Japan and Korea has grown by 40 per cent. The highest level of growth has been seen on AirBridgeCargo’s routes to Europe and Russia, where volumes rose 20 per cent and 46 per cent, respectively over this period. Overall, ABC transported 6,810 tonnes of cargo from Japan and Korea in the eight months to the end of August. AirBridgeCargo’s DAP (delivered as promised) performance figures on these routes were also above the industry average, reaching 90 per cent during in the January 1- August 31, 2014 period. These figures come at possibly one of the most eventful years in the history of AirBridgeCargo Airlines: 2014 is the tenth anniversary of the cargo carrier and it is also the year when the carrier is keen to justify its name ‘Airbridge’. The word stands for all that ABC stands for: from its Russian base it connecting markets in Europe, North America and Asia. ABC was set up in 2004 with one B747200 and five routes. Since then, the carrier has grown manifold. Last year (2013), it created a record by moving 345,000 tonnes of cargo. While its cargo traffic was 2,609,000 freight ton-kilometers, ABC’s

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SPOTLIGHT

FLEET AND ROUTES

he first AirBridgeCargo branded Boeing 747 commercial flight took place on April 23, 2004. Since then, the Russian carrier has enlarged its all-Boeing 747 fleet. “Our fleet is now one of the youngest in the entire air cargo industry,” said a company spokesperson. “We operate flights on 12 Boeing 747 freighters, including five new generation freighters Boeing 747-8F (there are four B747-400ERF and three B747-400F along with the five B747-8Fs).” In addition to the ABC planes, customers looking for charters anywhere in the world can take advantage of “Volga-Dnepr Group’s ‘cargo supermarket’ service offering, combining the most suitable and cost efficient aircraft and logistics solutions for each delivery air charter or scheduled cargo services” with a specialist fleet comprising Antonov 124 and Ilyushin 76 freighters, including the new IL-76TD-90VD freighter. The carrier has strengthened its presence in the Asian and American markets with increased frequencies: 10 weekly flights to and from Hong Kong, 14 flights a week to Shanghai, seven to Chicago and three each to Dallas, Tokyo and Seoul. As recently as September 19, the group launched weekly charter services to Basel, especially for the Swiss pharmaceutical and chemical industry. The group’s spokesperson also pointed out that the “new routes and increased frequencies

will in its turn further improve connectivity via the hub in Moscow. With the winter schedule, customers will be offered more than 390 weekly connections via the Moscow hub”. ABC has scheduled flights from Asian cities to major European gateways, as well as from Asia to USA via its hub in Sheremetyevo. The ABC network includes: Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Zaragoza, Milan, Paris, Leipzig, Munich; in Russia: Moscow, Yekaterinburg, Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk; in Asia: Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Seoul, and Tokyo; and Chicago and Dallas in the USA. In addition to its own routes, AirBridgeCargo’s delivery network is enhanced by interline agreements with other leading scheduled airlines, including Nippon Cargo Airlines, Air Canada, Emirates and Cargolux.

average load factor was 72 per cent – quite above the industry average. The record is impetus enough for Volga-Dnepr Group’s President Alexey Isaikin to view 2014 as the year to soar. He believes that the Group’s biggest challenge in the initial years was the creation of a corporate culture that would be appropriate for ABC’s business and its future. And 2013’s performance has changed all that. “We have that culture in place and that it will be the platform for the next exciting state of AirBridgeCargo’s development,” he told Cargo Supermarket, the Volga-Dnepr newsletter.

The culture that Isaikin mentioned emphasizes on the basics: filling up the aircraft and keeping customers happy. Wolfgang Meier, Vice President, Marketing and Development, of parent company Volga-Dnepr Group, mentioned the focus on customers in his conversation. “In difficult times,” he said, “customers always choose better quality, and this is what we have been working on.” Running smooth operations was not only a key requirement to meet customers’ expectations, but also the only way to a cost-effective business. The Group monitors operational performance with special reference to regularity, punctuality

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

and DAP (Delivered-As-Promised), a key driver for customer satisfaction. The DAP performance stands at between 95-100 per cent on main routes, according to Meier. The consumer-oriented approach has underlined ABC’s commitment to quality. Meier said that “besides high on-time performance, our involvement with Cargo 2000, as an associate member has been another important element in the push for quality”. ABC depends on Cargo 2000 to “deliver quality to customers; therefore, we pay particular attention to it”. Though ABC has nearly 90 per cent of its shipments tracked according to Cargo 2000 standards, it is gradually adding more clients. “We will continue to improve transparency of our business for customers to further meet our customers’ expectations,” said Meier. ABC’s thrust to satisfy consumers has gone hand in hand with additions to the fleet. This, when European carriers, for instance, are struggling to keep their heads in the air. “Despite the world economic crisis and a drop in demand for airfreight services Volga-Dnepr continued to implement and achieve its strategic goals,” commented Meier. Adding routes and boosting frequencies while moving into these new markets – that ABC characterises as the ‘A-Z of ABC’s Online Routes’ — has been made possible largely due to the long-term fleet modernisation strategy that despite the challenging market conditions in 2013, the carrier has pursued with determination. “With the delivery of its fifth B747-8F in December 2013, ABC completed its fleet renewal plan that began two years ago,” said Meier. “This investment has reduced the average age of its aircraft fleet from nine years at the end of 2011 to three years at the end of 2013. ABC’s fleet (comprising a dozen B747s — five Boeing 747-8s and seven Boeing 747-400s) is now one of the youngest in the air cargo industry,” he said. The fleet has helped traffic go up and strengthen its market positioning on routes linking major cargo destinations in Asia, Europe and North America. Freight ton-kilometres in January-June 2014, rose by 19 per cent, exceeding the industry average growth of 4.4 per cent. ABC out-performed the market in terms of its average load factors in the first half of 2014, reporting a

SPOTLIGHT

‘ABC TURNS CARGO AVIATION MARKET CHALLENGES INTO ADVANTAGES’

Wolfgang Meier, Vice President for Marketing & Development, Volga-Dnepr Group outlines ABC’s priorities in 2014 HOW DID VOLGA-DNEPR GROUP FARE IN 2013? Despite the world economic crisis and a drop in demand for airfreight services Volga-Dnepr continued to implement and achieve its strategic goals. Holding

a 52.2 per cent share of the world market, Volga-Dnepr Airlines is the world leader in the transportation of oversize and heavy air cargo. However, in 2013 Antonov AN124-100 freighter operations decreased by 27 per cent against 2012 and sales reduced by 19 per cent due to an anticipated reduction in military air logistics. We were able to compensate for this to a large extent by strong growth in demand for our Ilyushin IL-76TD-90VD services which saw flight operations increase by 13 per cent and sales increase by 19 per cent. The Group’s scheduled cargo airline AirBridgeCargo Airlines increased its cargo tonnage by 5 per cent in 2013, achieving its highest-ever annual volume of 340,000 tonnes across its network. The airline reported volume growth on all of its major routes. AirBridgeCargo’s freight tonne-kilometers rose 15 per cent in 2013, while its average load factor of 72 per cent showed a marginal 1.7 per cent gain over 2012 and continues to be well above the average for the industry.

WHAT ARE ABC’S PLANS FOR THE SECOND HALF OF 2014? We have ambitious plans not only for the second half of 2014 but the overall future development. Just in 10 years’ time we have ABC from a cargo project within ABC Group operating two aircraft on five routes into one of the largest international air cargo market players with leading positions on some markets, as for example on routes from Shanghai. And we plan to become the top world air cargo market leaders in the future. We at ABC see the challenges that the cargo aviation market brings as opportunities, and we continue turning these challenges into our advantages. Our flexibility, high-skilled international close-knit team, open minded customer relationships, our continued commitment to our customers together with the proved business model will allow us to further achieving year-on-year growth and development.

network-wide average of 72 per cent compared to the industry average of 45 per cent in the first five months of the year. ABC has, in fact, led in the Russian market with a market share of more than 30 per cent on domestic routes. Meier is optimistic about 2014, saying that the market will be stronger than 2013. Meier believes there will be growth in 2014 – at least the trends point to that – though “there is a fall in demand for airfreight services as a result of a drop in industrial production and a reduction in the consumption of products and services”. But that has not troubled ABC and the Group. Instead, it has “made us plan our costs more carefully and to gain income not by battling to increase our sales, but through opening new ‘market territo-

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

SPOTLIGHT

ries’ and proposing new products and services to our customers,” Meier said. ABC did some heavy lifts in 2013. The list is long and includes from transportation of over 6,000 tons of equipment in a space of 103 days for the ExxonMobil-operated PNG LNG Project to delivering B787 Dreamliner wing sections, supplying aid and relief cargo to victims of typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, transporting 27 fourlegged star performers from Moscow’s famous Nikulin Circus to Tokyo, delivering €130 million Piet Mondrian paintings as well as the carriage of the Olympic flame to Sochi. The Winter Olympics at Sochi this year saw the V-D Group in action. The planes delivered more than 1,800 tonnes of air cargo to support the Winter Games carrying broadcast, lighting and sports equipment as well as equipment used to create the local transport infrastructure. Since ABC was the only Russian-appointed air cargo carrier on the Europe-Sochi route, the V-D Group was stepped in to meet the increased demand for cargo capacity and provide customers with direct access by air. Apart from the special cargo that ABC does along with the aircraft of its parent V-D, on its own ABC has initiated moves to open new markets. There was the launch

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

of its services to Basel around the middle of September this year. The once-aweek B747 freighter service targeting the pharmaceutical business in the Swiss city of Basel was a move that will ensure fast movement of pharma products to Asian cities. The freighter will be able to adjust the temperature in each of its four cargo compartments between 4 and 29 degree Celsius for safe and reliable transportation of high-value pharma goods. The handling through the ABC hub in Moscow and less than 48-hour connections on O&D (Origin/ Destination freight), to Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Zhengzhou, Chengdu, Seoul and Tokyo will help the airline bring in newer customers. ABC’s growth plans include efforts to develop the domestic market while attracting more import traffic into Russia. The total volume of imports carried by ABC into Russia increased to 42,676 tonnes during the half-year of 2014 leading Denis Ilin, Executive President, AirBridgeCargo Airlines to comment that “the challenges which the global air cargo market continues to face have not held back ABC’s development. We have achieved our goals for the first half of the year and lay down ambitious plans for the second half of 2014… We are on track for a good 2014 and projecting our

total tonnage for the year to exceed 400,000 tonnes of cargo”. The short-term plans include what Meier termed “strengthening our positions on our anchor markets”. With the coming winter schedule, ABC will be seen on Asian and American markets with increased frequencies to/from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Chicago, Dallas, Tokyo and Seoul. Incidentally, ABC is getting set to launch a domestic Russian service with Volga-Dnepr subsidiary Atran Airlines that will operate Boeing 737 freighters. V-D, the world leader in the transportation of unique and oversize air cargo, too, will move ahead with its expertise in cargo transportation for the oil and gas and aerospace industries which “both have excellent development potential and we have seen a strong increase in these activities”, said Meier. The charter operations have also seen an increase in V-D’s support of big complex projects initiated by land-locked countries and countries with no developed infrastructure. “Often, establishing an efficient logistics ‘airbridge’ is the difference between a project being viable or not and we have a reputation for doing this successfully gained over nearly 25 years. We feel very confident of the future potential of these types of projects,” said Meier.

INNOVATION

“Industry knows RFID is not a barcode substitute” Consulting Editor Ramesh Kumar in conversation with Vinit Bhansali, Founder of Copper Spiral, focused in making Radio-Frequency IDentification (RFID), a quintessential tracer tool that enhances supply chain visibility. Excerpts: What is the latest on RFID? Today the market itself has matured towards knowing about RFID. One of the most common questions that was asked early on was very basic: What is RFID? Today, everyone at different level — the CXO level, the VP level, the GM level — understand what is RFID on the face of it and they are aware of what it can do; may be they have not implemented it themselves, but they have either read case studies or been gone through a demo or seen it in action somewhere. So that has moved along very well and that has been a huge benefit to us because now that people know what RFID is, it is only a matter of them to understanding is this the right solution for my warehouse, is this the right solution for my factory or not.

How did you get over the barcode versus RFID and the cost factor? The bias still exists. The first filter people apply is the price, irrespective of the usage of the technology. What has changed is that earlier people would assume that RFID will do the same thing that barcode does or vice versa, so why should I pay more? There is an understanding now that there are some areas where barcode is the right technology and there are certain areas where barcode does not give you any Return on Investment (ROI); even if I give you barcode for free, it still would not solve the pain point of the customer. So there they understand that RFID has to be the potential answer….

Which verticals show this awareness? Transportation industry. Highway to that is 100 percent RFID. There is no question of barcode versus RFID there. It is given that if you are talking about highway toll, it is RFID — end of discussion. Second

good example is supply chain for very expensive products both in terms of the cost of the item and the cost of, say, the perishable item so there RFID is moving along very well. Thirdly, where it is a re-usable palette or re-usable container, there RFID is picking on very well. So, these are the three main areas if I limit it to our own industry which is supply chain and logistics.

How far has your company, Copper Spiral, really made an entry in these segments? When I am talking about supply chain, and when I talk about costly items it could be jewellery, pharmaceuticals or that which has a perishable timeline to it like high-end chemicals or in general automotive parts. From that sense there has been a reduction of time spent running after customers and customers running after us where there is no match. Today, we have gotten a little stronger as an industry as a whole, where upfront we know that the customer is calling us but the best answer to give to the customer may be, “Sir, RFID is not for you or not for your product”.

What is the demand in each one of the segments? Multiple areas. One type of demand is government mandated demand. Government says you need RFID and they specifically say the word. For example, solar panels. As per the Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission, every panel that is installed in India — not just manufactured, but installed in India — will require a RFID sticker. One other area where it is mandated is highway toll where the NHAI has now put into place a mandate that if you are going to do highway toll it has to be exclusively RFID. There is no choice on other types of highway toll.

OPPORTUNITY TO STREAMLINE: RFID chip which transfers data stored on tags on a product or other object, facilitating identification and tracking

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INNOVATION

Now, beyond that it is changing. We are looking forward to the Gem and Jewellery Association. The industry as a whole is supplying to the solar panel industry across India. There is no solar panel manufacturer who can get away without RFID. Now it’s a matter of your choice: whether Vendor X or Vendor Y. That’s it. He cannot say we are not yet prepared for RFID or we will look at RFID in the next quarter or the next fiscal. That’s not allowed anymore and that’s been the case for more than a year now. Business is established.

How serious is the competition in the RFID segment? There are two types of competition in the RFID segment. One is specifically with the other RFID specific companies; the other competition is with the biggies – Wipro, Infosys, Accenture, IBM, etc. that do a little bit of everything and also do RFID. Now, what has improved is the big companies. Early on, we thought they were big competition and they thought we were competition, but today it has become complementary. In fact, consistently, we get more orders from these companies than from the end-customers because we have extremely specialised ourselves in one area, we have got extreme focus in one area. Every one of the top five IT outsourcing companies in India today has an RFID arm and the primary objective of that arm is to win orders, not necessarily to deploy the orders. We can do it for half the cost. Expertise is one thing. They may be able to match our expertise by throwing in 20 more people in every team. But the cost at which a company like mine can do it, I would say, it is less than half. We are less than half of the cost that those guys usually have. And that is significant by any yardstick which is good and that’s why I say it is complementary. There are certain projects that they may be adept at handling and there are certain projects that they feel they don’t need to handle. We get significant size of orders. There are orders that the small players in the RFID industry pick up that are multiple crores of rupees in size. I am not talking `5 lakh-`10 lakh orders I am talking about multiple crores over the lifetime of the orders in size.

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

What is the lifetime of the order?

Who are the other two?

It could depend. Right now if it is highOne company is called Avana based in Delhi way toll, lifetime may be 5-10 years. If it’s and the other is I-Tech based in Pune. They purely supply chain then it may be first two are all independent companies focused on years and beyond that it may be on-going RFID. They don’t do mobile development support and AMC (Annual Maintenance or video games; they are focused on RFID Contract) and so both ends. like us. Between us, what we have done is On the pharma side, we supply to a few we have created a respectable base of supfactories directly for their supply chain. ply vendors that a potential customer can There we have partnered with the internal talk to. Competition within us is acceptable IT team of the factory itself so it has not because they are good. We are good. So no been one single vendor who is giving a hard feelings if someone wins an order over solution. We have been a vendor who is an the other. X and the internal IT team has done X+Y What has happened unfortunately is and that has become the final solution. And leaving these top 10 or 12 companies there which is a completely acceptable thing for are another 90 companies or may be 200 or us because they have an internal IT 300 companies that have latched team and we would rather the on to the buzzword of RFID; internal IT team also have they have great theoretiFor the last two years some skin in the game. cal knowledge but zero They see any IT practical experience RFID had a significant team as a threat and and these companies growth. Our company has for good measure but have, I would say, grown double the revenue we appreciate it when muddied the waters every year since we started they are on board with with their inexperithe company. It has been us. Because that is anence so just to bring on great for us other person on board to board orders they have ensure that the RFID projgone and may be pitched it ect is successful. We want more at half the cost or less than half people on board so tomorrow if there is the cost of what it would cost and obcertain challenge or technical requirement viously the projects never worked out and from inside we have an in-house team that this has left a bad taste in the customer’s can take care of the in-house questions that mouth and now the customer is sworn off. are unique to each company or each factory. They are spread out in all the IT hotspots like Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad in South india, Pune and Mumbai in central Technology and transport… enhancing India and Noida, Delhi, Gurgaon in the value, productivity… North. At that level, the RFID industry I believe is today where we were hoping it would be five years ago. So we are offset by at least So do you have a platform or something five years comparatively… we had assumed to ward off the inexperienced companies? that there would be X amount of business These are still early days. There is no equivflowing in the year 2009-2010. That is startalent of a NASSCOM or something to fix ing to happen now in 2014 so we have been it so this does lead to an embarrassing podelayed but it has not stopped, the business sition. You have, for example, a customer is consistently growing. One thing that has may be from pharma, warehousing compaaffected the industry is that RFID became ny where finally the top management has too hot as a buzzword where you had all decided to allocate some budget and pilot sorts of companies. There are certain comRFID. At this point, if a customer is sold panies which are excellent. a RFID they are convinced. They want to I would say if you look at the top have RFID succeed in their factory or in 10 companies they are all great. We their warehouse. If at this point if one of consider ourselves in the top three these 200-odd vendors who are doing independent vendors of RFID in RFID, intervenes with a cheap quote, you India. know the result.

INNOVATION

They are doing 50 other things. If in the middle of a RFID pitch, if you ask him “will you make a video game for me’, he will say yes without even blinking. So that’s the level of their focus. He doesn’t care. He just wants the purchase order. We will very clearly say “sorry”. We will also do barcode projects only if it’s part of an RFID project. We have never done a single barcode project as an independent barcode project. Let’s say there is an RFID project where certain assets require barcoding then we have done barcode as part of the project. In this case what happens now you have a factory: the top guys (the VPs, CFOs) suddenly have a bad experience. Here you have gone for a customer who after many years has got sold on the idea of RFID and he had a bad experience. Now this is a once-bitten-twice-shy issue. This potential customer never wants to talk about RFID for the next few years. And this affects the industry as a whole. We have been able to solve that to a large extent because today the first thing we talk to our potential customer is we show them our existing satisfied customer. That is the only sales pitch we give. We tell them that the technology is standardized, we are not going to re-invent the wheel for you. We are going to give you what is available and we will customize it for what you want in your factory or warehouse. You first see what our satisfied customers tell about us and then you take the discussion forward and this has become our normal way of discussing RFID that even if you know that a company X loves RFID and they are ready with a blank cheque, I say thanks but first take a look at what someone else like you has done with RFID and then decide. That gives them ultimate transparency. If company X somehow goes and visits the warehouse or the logistics area of a company Y and see RFID in action nothing better than that. We guard our customers for two reasons – one, we don’t want to make it a freefor-all and number two, this is a customer’s live operation, its not a museum or a trade show, so the number of times we can request for visits are limited. I don’t want my customer tomorrow to say I have become your marketing arm.

What were the challenges? One of the biggest challenges we have con-

usage of RFID as a technology. If a company moves to a more serious ERP that means now they need a lot more of automated data. How are you going to get automated data? You are not going to get that by recruiting 500 more data entry operators. You are going to get automated data on supply chain by putting RFID tag. Very simple, very clear cut logic. So it directly has an effect on the RFID industry. Normally when we talk to the customers this is what we tell them that you have gone and invested in crores of SAP or Oracle but you are still recruiting 10,000 people to do your data What is the basic qualification required? entry. What if he messes up the data entry? A technical bent of mind is required. Either This is one of the oldest quotes in the comthere is a piece of project where its softputer industry – garbage in, garware development where you need bage out. RFID ensures that to develop software or there is the garbage does not go someone which we call the The industry in. they are getting deployment expert which convinced because is the person who actuas a whole is supplying at the end of the day ally goes to the customto the solar panel industry its but natural that er site, ensures it is coracross India. There is no everyone wants betrectly done, correctly solar panel manufacturer ter output for their installed, correctly conwho can get away investment. figured. So these are the without RFID two major challenge areas for us on the technical front. What is your annual On the sales front we have just as growth rate? much of a problem. I can’t have a sales guy For the last two years RFID had who knows how to sell barcode scanners, a significant growth. Our company has printers or laptops, go and try to sell RFID. grown double the revenue every year since RFID is a solution. It’s not a boxed readywe started the company. Last two years, it to-use product. It is not like you buy a HP has been more than double so it has been laptop and open the box, press the power great for us. button and that’s it. RFID needs to be installed, configured and integrated with SAP Do you get any support from CII Institute or Oracle. So it’s selling a solution. Even of Logistics? the sales people have to be trained by us. So They have invited me multiple times to that was a challenge. We were extremely give talks and classes on RFID at IIT-Chensuccessful at this where my first employnai. I have gone there to give talks specifee of Copper Spiral today heads the RFID ically, take a course, give a talk on RFID practice for Wipro. He joined us in 2007-8 including taking demonstration hardware, when we started off and obviously he has showing them what it means. Now that moved along because the market has moved does not necessarily mean that those taking along. As a small company that is always a the course were actually IIT under-graduchallenge, you can get people, you can then ate students…these are professionals who train them but then the bigger companies are coming for a short-term management will always have a little better offer. programme. So, for example, they have a course on supply chain, then the target audience is specifically people in supply Where do you see this industry in the next chain with an understanding of the newer five years, especially with the governtechnologies available. So that has been a ment’s greater thrust on manufacturing? huge benefit for them, for me and I hope the More manufacturing, more automation students also. means more applications of RFID, more sistently faced is manpower. RFID trained technical people. India may be a software and IT powerhouse, but that’s all general powerhouse, I can’t go out on the streets — and even if I wanted to pay the highest salary in the market — get enough RFID experts so we had to solve that manually which is we literally became an RFID training organization. Every time you would recruit someone there would be X months of training, similar to what Infosys does in their Mysore campus.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

TECH

SwitchIT

ir cargo is all about selling speed cost effectively. And recently it has met with some success. The overall growth of air cargo for the six month period ending June 2014 was 4.1 per cent as against 1.4 per cent for 2013. This growth is largely attributed to the pickup in the global economy. The growth could, however, be short-lived. Air cargo industry faces the risk of being edged out by competition from other alternatives. The need for faster end-to-end transit times, greater reliability and improved efficiency have never been greater. Time stands still for no one. The air cargo industry has to innovate to stay

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

Now that air cargo is once again on the upswing, it is time for air cargo stakeholders to take a decisive step and move to internationally recognised programmes like e-Freight and Cargo 2000

relevant.“Ninety per cent of the transit time of air cargo is spent not moving but waiting to be moved. Thus there are huge opportunities for improving efficiencies. Air cargo shipments require as many as 30 paper documents which unnecessarily slows the process and places a huge strain on resources. Clearly there is a strong case for significantly reducing the number of individual processes in the supply chain” says V K Mathews, Founder and Executive Chairman of IBS Software. The building blocks for the future of air cargo management is unmistakably a greater adoption of IT and global programmes like e-Freight and Cargo 2000. India headquartered IBS Software has been one of the first companies to pioneer this move. Set up in 1997, IBS provides to the industry the widest range of aviation IT products across passenger services, flight and crew operations, airport operations and aircraft maintenance engineering. However, its core strength is in cargo operations. Today over 70 per cent of the air cargo movement in and out of Japan and Australia is powered by IBS’ award winning software, iCargo. Its clientele includes All Nippon Airways, British Airways, IndiGo, Qantas, South African Airways, Nippon Cargo Airlines, Lufthansa Cargo and Turkish. More airlines would shortly be joining this list. The origin of iCargo is pretty unique. It was developed in collaboration with five major airlines, which formed the “Core Group of Influence” (CGI) through which IBS garnered visibility to the aspirations of the air cargo industry. “It is, therefore, in every respect, an offering by the industry for the industry. As a result of its forward-looking nature, iCargo is fully capable of handling the most current business practices, yet flexible and innovative enough to accommodate evolving and futuristic requirements. iCargo is the only IT

solution currently available in the industry that addresses all business processes of cargo management covering cargo sales, handling operations and revenue accounting as well as other supporting functions such as Air Mail Management, ULD Management and Quality Management including Cargo 2000 CDMP in one seamlessly integrated system” says Mathews. iCargo’s increasing acceptance comes from the fact that it incorporates industry best practices such as e-Freight, eAWB, Cargo 2000 as well as all industry mandated requirements related to EDI, advance declarations for customs and security. The community led model which formed the genesis of the

TECH

product continues through the ‘IBS Cargo Forum’, a bi-yearly customer meet designed to influence the roadmap of iCargo. The need to migrate to new-gen IT systems like iCargo are critical for airlines to be liberated from the constraints of legacy systems. Cutting edge technology needs to be leveraged to offer differ-

years. Finally, the system will go live in two or three phases. However, there is no doubt that legacy systems will have to be abandoned sooner than later. “Airlines, big and small, will have to embrace customer centricity. Business innovations will have to be brought about. The cost of operations needs to be brought down as

well. All these are required entiated solutions. However, the to stay ahead of comdecision to overhaul the IT petition. The only landscape is not easy for IBS clientele inway to achieve the airlines. As an induscludes All Nippon Airways, these goals is try veteran points out by using sys“it is akin to performBritish Airways, IndiGo, tems that are a ing an open heart surQantas, South African futuristic and gery while the patient Airways, Nippon Cargo flexible. Big is running.” While Airlines, Lufthansa Cargo airlines need many of the smaller to be convinced airlines have made the and Turkish. More airlines that there is no leap, some of the larger would shortly be joining other way out” airlines are reluctant to this list adds Mathews. And take the plunge. Migration IBS has done just that. can be complex, risky and time Spurred on by its recent succonsuming; sometimes as long as 5

cesses with large airlines, IBS has invested significantly in the iCargo solution, adding more teeth to its effectiveness. Specifically, three path breaking IT innovations stand out — mobility, cloud based communication and glass based enhancement — bringing immense benefits to airlines that use the solution for managing cargo movement. Leveraging the giant strides made by mobile technology, IBS launched iCargo Mobility that takes full advantage of the enhanced last-mile connectivity to deliver new levels of organisational effectiveness and customer satisfaction. This affords continuous real-time visibility of business data for agents and customers at the point of transaction enhancing service delivery quality, information accuracy and customer service. In a major innovative augmentation, IBS added iCX, an internet/cloud based communication system that will significantly reduce the cost of messaging between airlines and supply chain partners like carriers, forwarders, shippers, consignees and GHA’s. The new enhancement allows for free interchange of data using formatted messages, files (including scanned documents) and also real time integration between different customers of iCargo. Heralding the next wave of innovation in management of cargo movement, IBS has incorporated a path breaking glass-based enhancement to iCargo. The wearable device provides the users with a visual ‘screen’ superimposed on the normal visual reference via a heads up display (HUD) ushering in a new paradigm for hands-free mobile transaction processing. The enhancement provides a touch-free environment through a combination of voice-activated commands and gesture control and is particularly useful for business users on the move, like warehouse staff on forklift trucks who need to access/update information. Real time status update and easy access of information are possible without an input device. Mathews concludes “We are constantly on the move to ensure that iCargo remains the most definitive solution for the air cargo industry. For this we invest significantly in terms of R&D to ensure path breaking and ‘industry first’ customer experience capabilities. This way we help users reduce cost of operations, increase revenue & market share and improve customer experience.”

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

NEWS IN BRIEF

Tiruchi to export more cargo

AIR  TAP PORTUGAL-CHEP TIES UP

AAI

TAP Portugal has signed a four-year outsourcing agreement with CHEP Aerospace Solutions to upgrade the flag carrier’s unit load devices (ULDs) to newer models that are expected to reduce the airline’s fuel costs by as much as €2.5 million over the length of the contract. Under the agreement, Zurich-based

CHEP will assume control and maintenance of TAP’s 3,500 aluminum ULDs and galley carts and add them to their pool of cargo containers, which are serviced by 50 repair stations worldwide. Over time, CHEP also will replace TAP’s ULDs with lightweight containers that will require less fuel to transport, thus reducing carbon emissions by 11,000 tonnes over the next four years. SIA CARGO SIGNS DEAL : Singapore Airlines (SIA) Cargo has appointed CHEP Aerospace Solutions to maintain and repair its fleet of ULDs. Under the five-year contract, CHEP will provide repairs for 16,000 containers for SIA, as well as Scoot, SIA’s medium- and long-haul low-cost subsidiary. CHEP will expand its operations in Singapore to support the new business. The ULD management company recently won a contract with Cathay Pacific, and American Airlines also renewed its contract. Repairs will be carried out across CHEP’s extensive global network, including stations in Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific. CHEP Aerospace Solutions will also be expanding its operations in Singapore to support this new business.

ARGENTINA’S FIRST SATELLITE DELIVERED Chapman Freeborn Airchartering and Volga-Dnepr Airlines have helped Ar-

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

iruchi International Airport is all set to export more cargo as Malaysia-based Malindo Air has started its cargo operations from the airport with daily flights to Kuala Lumpur from Tiruchi. The first shipment of 115 kg of conch shells was dispatched to Penang recently. The airline is now the fifth international carrier to carry cargo from the Tiruchi airport after Sri Lankan Airlines, Tiger Airways, Air Asia and Air India. Airport sources said to a daily that the uplift capacity from Tiruchi had been added with Malindo Air’s decision to lift cargo. The available belly space in the airline’s 737-900 ER series aircraft would be utilised to export cargo from Tiruchi. It is expected that 1.5 to two tonnes of cargo could be loaded in the available belly space for export. Officials hope that the cargo movements would get a further

push once Malindo Air establishes the Kuala Lumpur-Singapore connection. “We are expecting in the days to come more cargo from Tiruchi market which looks better,” Nagalakshmi Vijayan, Manager-Cargo, Malindo Air said. Ninety per cent of cargo exported from the Tiruchi airport are perishable commodities such as vegetables, flowers and fruits with the remaining being leather items, fabric, garments, food stuff and miscellaneous items. The consignments are exported to a host of nations such as Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Colombo, Kuwait, Dubai, Male, Hong Kong, Seoul, Melbourne, Sydney and China. Ever since the air cargo terminal was commissioned in 2011, the volume of exports has increased gradually. Exports rose from 2,891 metric tonnes in 2012-13 fiscal to 4,715 tonnes in 2013-14.

Saudia Cargo appoints ECS as GSSA in India

audi Airlines Cargo Co. appointed ECS Globe Air Cargo India Pvt. Ltd as its General Sales and Services Agent in India. “We look forward to working jointly with ECS to further develop our business in India. I am confident that together with their efforts, our clients in India will benefit from this exclusive partnership,” said Keku Gazder, Regional Director for the airline in the Indian Sub-Continent. “ECS India is hon-

oured and happy to be the GSSA for Saudia Cargo in India,” said Rajendra Dubey, ECS Globe Air’s Director of India. “We have a young and dynamic team who will put forth their best efforts for the continued growth of Saudia Cargo,” he added. ECS operates 10 offices at major domestic and international airports in India, including New Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Chennai, Cochin and Calicut.

NEWS IN BRIEF

DHL

DHL plans pilot drone project

HL Parcel has announced plans to trial a project on the North Sea island of Juist, where it will fly medicine and other urgent items by parcelcopter, the company’s name for its drone. The project will be the first time in Europe that a flight by an unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV) will be operated outside of the pilot’s field of vision in a real-life mission.

The parcelcopter had its maiden flight in December last year. Since then it has been modified to better withstand the wind and marine-weather conditions of the North Sea. The flight route to the island of Juist is roughly 12 km and the flight will be completely automated at an altitude of 50 meters. The parcelcopter can travel up to 18 meters per second depending on wind speed. “Our DHL parcelcopter2.0 is already one of the safest and most reliable flight systems in its class that meets the requirements needed to fulfill such a mission,” said Jürgen Gerdes, CEO of Deutsche Post DHL’s Post - eCommerce - Parcel Division. “We are proud that this additional service can create added value for the residents of and visitors to the island of Juist and are pleased with the support we have received from the involved communities and agencies,” he added.

Cathay Pacific launches Wine Lift

Emirates SkyCargo launches new LD3

athay Pacific has launched a new aerial freight service specially designed for shipping wine around the world. The latest in the carrier’s specialised air lift series, “Wine Lift” has been introduced to reflect Hong Kong’s “increasing status as a hub for the global wine trade. The service provides wine merchants and customers with a service specifically tailored to meet their requirements for transporting wine in a safe and timely manner, company said. As well as speed, Cathay is also offering temperature controlled shipping and storage at most destinations in the airline’s network. Cathay Pacific General Manager for Cargo Sales & Marketing, Mark Sutch, said: “Our extensive network reaches into most of the world’s most prominent wine-producing countries and wine-trading centers, and we are confident our new product will be welcomed by both commercial and private wine shippers.”

mirates SkyCargo has launched an internally developed LD3 container that keeps temperature sensitive cargo cool when transported on the ground and in the air. Called the “White Container,” it’s the latest addition to Emirates SkyCargo’s Cool Chain portfolio, and has been designed specifically as an intermediate temperature control solution which is ideal for generic healthcare products and food perishables. The inside of the White Container is coated with thermal insulators, which prevents the transfer of outside heat into the container, and uses coolant trays allowing handlers to add or replenish dry ice or coolants without disturbing the packaging. It can be used for shipments requiring temperatures between 2°C-8°C and 5°C-25°C and is a reliable solution for time and temperature sensitive cargo that do not fall into the very high sensitive category.

AIR  gentina’s aerospace industry to deliver the first-ever space satellite manufactured in the country from San Carlos de Bariloche Airport to its launch site in French Guiana. The ARSAT-1 satellite and its special transport container, weighing about 40 tons, were carried onboard an An-124-100 freighter under the Ruslan International joint venture. The flight was performed by Volga-Dnepr on behalf of the Brazil office of global aircraft charter specialists Chapman Freeborn. “We’re delighted to have managed

this high-profile charter operation on behalf of our client. I would also like to thank Volga-Dnepr for its support in making this operation a huge success. The customer was very happy with the professionalism demonstrated,” commented Chapman Freeborn’s Brazil Country Manager Maria Faria.

AA APPOINTS WORLD CONNECT AS GSA American Airlines (AA) has appointed World Connect Pvt. Ltd. as the company’s General Sales Agent (GSA) in India effective November 1, 2014. A team of ten members which will include a Product Manager, Operational Manager, three Reservation Agents and two Sales Executives will be based in Delhi with two Sales Executives located in Mumbai and one Sales Executive in Chennai. AA can also call upon additional field staff in other major cities across India.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

NEWS IN BRIEF

VPT SETS RECORD The Visakhaptnam Port Trust (VPT) has established an all-time record

in unloading of manganese ore in bulk in a single day. The Port handled a quantity of 22,053 tonnes with a gang hook output of 1838 tonnes of Manganese ore in bulk for Saradha Energy & Minerals limited. The ore was discharged from the vessel m. v. ILIA on September 14 at East Quay-5 berth, for which K R & Sons Pvt. Ltd was the stevedore and Admiral Shipping Ltd the steamer agent. According to a release from the Port, K R & Sons Private Limited were the Stevedores and Admiral Shipping Limited the steamer agents for the ship. INDIA TO DEVELOP BANGLADESH PORT India would develop a river port in Bangladesh to ferry essentials, foodgrain and heavy machinery to northeast region from different parts of the country and abroad, the sources said. “India would provide necessary funds to develop the Ashuganj port over Meghna river. India’s two North-Eastern states and Bangladesh as well would be benefited if the river port’s necessary infrastructure were developed,” said Sandeep Chakravorty, India’s Deputy High Commissioner in Dhaka. “The WAPCOS is preparing a DPR (Detailed Project Report) to develop the port,” he added. Ashuganj Port over river Meghna in eastern Bangladesh is around 40 km from Tripura capital Agartala.

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

India-Myanmar container shipping service launched

Krishnapatnam Port Container Terminal Flagging off SCI Vessel, MV KAMAL to YANGON Port

he Look East Policy of the Central Government got a boost with the launch of India-Myanmar container shipping service at Chennai port. The service, run by the State-owned Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), was launched by Shipping Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi. “The service will cater to Mizoram and other North-eastern states using the Sittwe port in Myanmar located on the mouth of the Kaladan river,” Vishwapati Trivedi said. Cargo ship ‘MV Kamal’ made its maiden call at the Chennai port with a 200 Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) consignment, the company said in a statement. The cargo brought by the ship included pulses, timber, furniture, cement and chemicals. The ship will call on Krishnapatnam, Yangon and Colombo before returning to Chennai as part of the fortnightly service. SCI, under the country’s Look East Policy is keen on boosting coastal shipping and transhipment of goods while strengthening the opportunities for trade in the South-East Asian region. Singapore, Vietnam and Thailand are among the potential areas identified. According to sources, SCI’s aim is to expand trade in the region, which would also ensure there are immense opportunities for ports located in the eastern part of the country.

SCI

SHIPPING AND PORTS 

No to privatisation: SCI’s privatisation has been ruled out by the Indian government. “The shipowner continues to perform well and there is no plan to privatise it. It’s doing well. Why should we give it away? It will continue to be a government-run organisation,” Shipping Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi told a daily. SCI’s Managing Director A K Gupta said: “We are improving our performance every quarter, and we are in a good shape.”

NEWS IN BRIEF

Emirates Shipping to add Nhava Sheva to Africa Service mirates Shipping Line has expanded its Gulf-Indian subcontinent-Africa (GIA) service by adding a direct call at the Port of Jawaharlal Nehru (Nhava Sheva), India’s largest container gateway. The weekly service, using seven vessels, will now offer the following port rotation: Nhava Sheva, India; Jebel Ali, United Arab Emirates; Khor Fakkan, Oman; Mombasa, Kenya; Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar, Tanzania; Nacala, Mozambique; and back to Nhava Sheva. “The decision (to include Nhava Sheva call) is in view of the dynamic and improved markets in India to the ports of East Africa. We are positive that the ad-

WIKIMEDIA

dition of Nhava Sheva will enhance the competitiveness of Emirates Shipping Line on the India-Middle East to East African market,” company said in a written statement.

Good first-half for MPT

ormugao Port Trust (MPT) registered a 22.29 per cent growth in the first-half of the current fiscal. “This is the highest growth rate achieved by any major port in the country in the first-half, with growth recorded by Port Kamarajar (Ennore Port) at 16 per cent and V. O. Chidambarnar Port at 10 per cent during the period,” Cyril C. George, Chairman-In Charge of Mormugao Port Trust, said. General cargo

traffic, except liquid cargo, has increased by 15 per cent. This has been made possible through the marketing initiatives and trade meets held in the hinterland in Hubli, Belgaum, Bagalkhot in Northern Karnataka, he added. The total cargo throughput during the period was 6.31 million tonnes (mt) against 5.16 mt in the corresponding period of 2013-14.

Indian LNG tankers for GAIL

ndian shipbuilders are likely to construct three LNG tankers needed by GAIL (India) Ltd to transport gas from the US. This is likely to commence in the end of 2017. The Shipping Ministry has identified the State-run Cochin Shipyard in Kerala, and private yards at Katupalli (Tamil Nadu) and Pipavav (Gujarat) to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) ships. This can be a step forward to the Make in India programme announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently. Shipbuilding is an industry dominated by

South Korea, Japan and China. “We will bring in a very attractive promotion policy to encourage ship building industry in India,” Shipping Secretary Vishwapati Trivedi said. “We are looking at building three LNG ships in the next six years. Hopefully, the state-owned Shipping Corporation of India will run these ships. Each ship will cost around `1,500 crore. While money is not an issue as the GAIL Ltd will take care, the issue is about getting technology partners,” he added.

SHIPPING AND PORTS  KPL TO SET UP A 650 ACRE SEZ Kamaraj Port Limited (KPL) is planning to build a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) or Free Trade Zone (FTZ) on a 650-acre land. The Port has also signed a MoU with Puducherry government to set up a port in the Union territory. “We have acquired around 650 acre of land from the Salt Department over which we are planning to set up a SEZ or FTZ. A feasibility report would be done soon as we get a consultant. We are primarily looking to cater to manufacturing industries,” said M A Bhaskarachar, Chairman and Managing Director, Kamaraja Port Ltd. “Soon we will appoint a consultant to conduct the feasibility report. The Port is planning to promote the zone for manufacturing industries. Soon a SPV will be floated to promote the Port, which will have two or three berths to handle clean cargo, containers and cruise,” he added. The Kamaraj Port also held talks with the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation to start a cruise service from Ennore, about 45 kilometer (km) from Chennai, to Kanyakumari via tourist destinations of Mahabalipuram, Puducherry and Rameswaram.

RISE IN COAL IMPORT AT MAJOR PORTS Country’s Major Ports saw 12 per cent jump in handling imported dry-fuel in August to 9.41 million tonnes (mt). This is due to the rising coal demand from fuelstarved power plants. Imported thermal coal handling at these state-owned ports increased by 14 per cent to 6.81 MT in August as compared to the same month in 2013. Coking coal imports through these ports rose 7.43 per cent to 2.65 mt during the month, an Indian Ports Association (IPA) official said. Amid widening demand-supply gap and increased requirement of dry-fuel, these 12 major ports had seen 22 per cent jump in imported thermal coal cargo at 71.60 mt last year. India’s 12 major ports handle approximately 61 per cent of the country’s total cargo traffic.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

NEWS IN BRIEF

LAND  PRCL EARNINGS UP IN 2013-14 The traffic revenue earnings of Pipavav Railway Corporation Limit-

ed (PRCL), a joint sector company of the Ministry of Railways and Gujarat Pipavav Port Limted (GPPL), rose by 30 per cent at around `232 crore during 2013-14 than in 2012-13. The company also registered a net profit of `80.78 crore during the period. PRCL has constructed a 270 kilometer (km) broad gauge rail network from APM Terminals Pipavav to Surendranagar in Gujarat, and operates and maintains it. The company also has licence to run container trains.

KRCL EARNINGS FROM RO-RO SERVICE UP The Konkan Railway Corporation Limited (KRCL) earned revenue of `65 crore

from RO-RO (roll-on roll-off ) service for truckers during 2013-14, according to an official of KRCL. The corporation had earned `50 crore from RORO service during 2012-13. In RO-RO, loaded trucks are carried directly on railway wagons between two destinations. The service was started in 1999. The service is being operated between Kolad in Maharashtra and Surathkal in Karnataka. The corporation carried 55,000 trucks through

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

Amazon joins hands with Patel Logistics A mazon has signed a deal with Patel Logistics for domestic deliveries as part of ensuring next day delivery to more customers. Patel Logistics has begun securing exclusive bookings from airlines such as IndiGo, Jet Airways and SpiceJet to ship Amazon’s products. Demand for next-day delivery, which Amazon started in December last year, is rising rapidly in smaller cities and towns that are not necessarily well connected. Customers will have to pay `99 per order for the speedier service. Patel Logistics is responsible only for moving goods from one airport to another. Once the products reach the respective airports, Amazon’s other vendors such as Gati, Blue Dart and FedEx handle last-mile delivery. “E-commerce offers good opportunity for logistics companies. Our alliance will give Amazon a competitive advantage. We are now gearing up for the festive season,” said Areef Patel, Vice Chairman of Patel Logistics.

DATA CENTRES IN INDIA: Amazon will set up performance centres, upgrade logistics services, and develop mobile platform and new tools and techniques to help small and medium businesses grow in India. “We are always evaluating new locations. We have Amazon Web Services (AWS). We started it long time ago and it has grown into a very large business, separate from our consumer business... we are building new data centress and are looking where we should put them and evaluating these in India as well,” said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com speaking at an FICCI event.

Blue Dart’s growth continues

lue Dart Express Limited has declared its financial results for the quarter ended September 30. The company posted `30.81 crores profit after tax for the quarter. Net Sales/Income from operations stood at `581.66 crores. Anil Khanna, Managing Director, Blue Dart Express Limited said, “We are pleased to announce that we have sustained our growth momentum in our performance this quarter. Despite a challenging macro-economic environment, Blue Dart has continued to be resilient and has displayed exemplary quality and service excellence. We have maintained a strong focus on our e-tailing business and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise (SME) sector. Going forward we will continue to drive our business through the widest range of innovative products and services with the support of our pas-

Sukhwinder Singh, Regional Head – North, Blue Dart Express Limited inaugurating Blue Dart’s office in Bhilwara, Rajasthan

sionate people force, dedicated air and ground infrastructure and superior technology.” NEW CENTRE IN RAJASTHAN: Blue Dart recently launched a centre in Bhilwara, Rajasthan. This launh once again underlined Blue Dart’s commitment to partner with Tier II and III cities in their growth. The centre will be attached to the Greater Gurgaon and Rajasthan branch. This centre will be a significant hub on the 600 km Jaipur-Udaipur route.

NEWS IN BRIEF

IMG to study rail freight tariff

LAND 

the service during 2013-14 as against 48,000 in 2012-13, official added.

n Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) has been formed by the Coal Ministry to study the trend in the rail freight tariffs over the last two-three years and its impact on the price of coal. The group is of six members under the chairmanship of Joint Secretary, Coal. It has representatives from the Ministries of Power and Railways, Coal India and the Central Electricity Authority, according to an official memorandum. “The terms of reference of the group would be to study the trends in rail freight tariffs over the last two-three years and its effect on the price of coal,” it said. The group will make a report and submit it to the government, it added. The government had in June increased freight rates by 6.5 per cent. The previous UPA government had increased the coal freight rate by 5.7 per cent in Railway Budget 2013-14.

WIKIMEDIA

GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES APLENTY FOR LSPS

DB Schenker opens facility in Ahmedabad

B Schenker (India) has opened a 55,000-square-foot Schenker Logistics Center in Ahmedabad, India, to serve customers in the western region. The Schenker Logistics Center, located 370 kilometers (about 230 miles) from Mundra Port and major industrial locations, is designed to offer customers logistics and warehousing solutions, such as last-mile delivery and value-added services. “The opening of our logistics centre in Ahmedabad is part of our overall strategy to expand our warehousing capacity by 50 per cent to three million sq. ft. The warehouse is strategically located close to railhead and port, and features advanced IT systems that allow our customers to manage their supply chain better and more efficiently. The DB Schenker Logistics Centre, backed

by the company’s deep domain expertise, is well positioned to cater to the burgeoning demand for quality integrated logistics solutions in the Gujarat region,” Shrichand Chimnani, Director – Logistics, DB Schenker India Pvt. Ltd., said. APPOINTMENT: Marcel Opitz has been appointed as Director Sales, Schenker India Pvt. Ltd. He will be responsible for further strengthening DB Schenker sales and drive ahead the sales and key account strategy in India.

In its annual strategy workshop for the logistics sector, ‘Supply Chain Transformations 2014’, Frost & Sullivan sought answers on logistics opportunities from India’s international trade and emerging industries, the diverse logistics challenges of rural vs. urban markets, etc. Frost & Sullivan’s studies have found that the transportation and logistics market in India grew at a CAGR of 7.2 per cent between 2009 and 2013. Howwever, growth in the last two years was only in the range of 4-5 per cent, mainly due to the decline in exports and imports and a slowdown in the domestic market’s urban consumer segments. However, an analysis of India’s trade statistics found that the country’s trade value (excluding petroleum and oil) with countries it has trade agreements with grew by 12.2 per cent in 2013-14. On the occasion, V.G. Ramakrishnan, Managing Director – South Asia, Frost & Sullivan said, “For logistics service providers (LSPs) to effectively tap opportunities in fulfilling varying logistics needs of international trade, emerging industries, and rural markets, a suitable and specific set of capabilities for the respective segments must be possessed and a collaborative approach involving logistics end users must be adopted. Logistics end users are increasingly open about utilizing shared resources of LSPs to gain efficiencies. But, lack of cooperation within the LSP fraternity is resulting in several inefficiencies affecting all the stakeholders of the logistics fraternity.” The workshop witnessed participation from about 100 logistics experts and thought leaders representing different stakeholders of the sector like LSPs, logistics service users, automation and technology solution providers, academic institutions, and media/publication companies.

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

NEWS IN BRIEF

INFRASTRUCTURE  ALS IN JV WITH INDIA GLYCOLS Apollo LogiSolutions (ALS) has planned to establish an Inland Container Depot. It has entered into a joint venture (JV) with India Glycols Ltd. In the joint venture Apollo LogiSolutions Ltd. will hold 51 per cent of the expanded capital base. ALS is a logistics arm of Apollo International Ltd. “The JV will develop, manage and operate freight terminal at Kashipur, Uttarakhand at an estimated project cost of `90 crore. The JV will be funded through combination of debt and equity. The facility is expected to be operational by April 2015,” ALS said in a statement. “Our entry in the ICD segment is another significant step towards building integrated logistics capabilities. With this opportunity, we will not only be better equipped to handle and store containerised cargo but also provide our hinterland customers port services closer to their premises,” ALS Vice Chairman and Managing Director Raaja Kanwar said.

NEW PORT IN VISAKHAPATNAM After Visakhapatnam Port and Gangavaram Port, a third port is to be established in Visakhapatnam district. According to industry sources, KSR Maritime Projects is going to set up a port capable of handling around 100 million tonnes of cargo around Nakkapalle area at an estimated investment of nearly `30,000 crore. The port project, expected to be developed in four phases, will handle around 60 million tonnes of cargo per annum in about six years after the completion. It will be later expanded to handle around 100 million tonnes. The project plan includes a fishery terminal, bulk cargo terminal, container terminal for container cargo and also for petrochemical product vessels, Ro-Ro (roll on-roll off ) and coastal terminal essentially designed for operation of Ro-Ro vessels.

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

Major Ports to get rail link

ll 12 major sea ports will be connected with railways and a roll-on-roll-off service to transport vehicles easily from factories will also be started as per the Central government’s plans. “We plan to connect all major 12 ports with direct rail connectivity for which a proposal has been sent to the Railways. The shipping ministry also plans to start a roll-on-roll-off service to transport vehicles easily from factories,” Union Road Transport and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari said at a Confederation of Indi-

an Industry (CII) event. Work is also being done to draft new policies for shipbuilding and ship-breaking industry, he added. He also said that inland waterways had to be developed since it was much more economical compared to road and rail transport and for this, major rivers needed to be connected. However, he admitted that the private sector was shying away from PPP projects primarily because of high interest rates and reluctance of banks to fund such projects.

AWARD DHL’s seventh award at ELSC conclave

SHINING HIGH: (L-R) Piotr Polak, Chief Executive Officer, Chartered Institute of Co–operation, Poland, Surendra Singh Panwar, Manager-Airfreight Capacity Management, DGF, Nilanjana Chakrabarti, Manager-Airfreight Commercial Centre DGF and Anshuman Singh, Managing Director & CEO, Future Supply Chains Ltd during the award ceremony

DEUTSCHE POST DHL won the ‘Best Logistics Service Provider of the year – Air Freight’ at the recently held Express, Logistics & Supply Chain (ELSC) conclave. This award was won amidst stiff competition from leading logistics companies in India and is recognition of DHL’s seamless efforts in delivering consistent and timely services in the air freight business on an uninterrupted basis. The Award was received by Nilanjana Chakrabarti, Manager-Airfreight Commercial Centre and Surendra Singh Panwar, Manager-Airfreight Capacity Management on behalf of DHL Global Forwarding.

Honours for Bharat Thakkar BHARAT THAKKAR, immediate past President of Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI), was presented the ‘Star of Asia Award’ and a gold medal along with a ‘Certificate of Excellence’ by Global Achiever’s Foundation at Kathmandu on August 2 during the Indo Nepal Friendship & Economic Cooperation Summit in recognition of his sterling merit, excellent performance and outstanding achievement. Again on August 22, on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s birthday, Thakkar received the Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award along with a gold medal and ‘Certificate for Outstanding Achievement’ at the National Seminar on Socio Economic Development by the Indian Solidarity Council (ISC). He was also bestowed with the ‘Rajiv Gandhi Excellence Award and Certificate of Excellence by the Indian International Friendship Society for outstanding individual achievements and distinguished services to the nation during the conference organised on Economic Growth and National Integration on September 4, 2014.

COLUMN

Industrial Revolution Redux

Gary Hodgson believes a rerun of the Industrial Revolution is happening in the shipping

hen I was preparing the content for my presentation for TOC Europe (Shipping Watch, Carrier Alliances, Schedules and Supply Chain Impact), I was struck by the similarities between what is happening in the shipping industry today and the Industrial Revolution. At first pass you might not think the two are related – but the Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history. It signalled the transition to new manufacturing processes and production methods. It began in Great Britain and spread to Western Europe and the US within a few decades. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, inland transport was carried out via navigable rivers and roads, with coastal vessels employed to move heavy goods by sea – but canals had not yet been constructed. The Industrial Revolution improved Britain’s transport infrastructure with a turnpike road system, a canal and waterway system and a rail network. Canals were the first technology to allow bulk materials to be easily transported across the country – raw materials could be moved to destinations, more quickly and more cheaply than before. Looking at the shipping industry over the past 50 years, it too has undergone a dramatic evolution. Look at the size of container vessels which have increased by over 3,500 per cent since the mid 1950s.Today, about every fourth container vessel at sea is a post-Panamax vessel, equal to 55 per cent of total global fleet capacity. We are now entering the era of New Panamax (12,500 TEU) and Triple E (18,500 TEU) vessels — signs that the in-

dustry is gearing up for the anticipated 2016 opening of the expanded Panama Canal. It seems that the industry is being shaped by a cost-saving strategy that minimises the costs per moved TEU through huge investments in large cost-efficient vessels. And we are seeing tactical movement amongst carriers to strike up new global alliances in an effort to gain greater control of major cargo trade routes. Although Maersk Line’s plan to set up an alliance with its rivals CMA-CGM of France and Mediterranean Shipping Co. of Switzerland won clearance in March from US regulators, Chinese regulators rejected the proposition. Despite this ‘blip’ I think the trend towards consolidation is unmistakable and we will see more of this type of activity in the next few years. The shipping landscape is changing – look at the movement in scheduling. More carriers are operating on strings on the Asia-Europe trade lanes and there are more daily services; larger vessels will mean greater need for larger feeder services to regional European Ports. What does that mean for port operators? Essentially, today’s ports will need to ensure they are ‘future proofing’ their infrastructure, operations and capacity aligned to the changes in market dynamics. That is why Peel Ports are investing over £300 million in the redevelopment of the Port of Liverpool, to develop and expand the existing infrastructure and facilities to create the UK’s most central deep-water container terminal – a state-of-the-art freight gateway at the heart of Great Britain. The Port of Liverpool is already Britain’s third largest container terminal – and the largest serving the transatlantic market. It currently handles a diverse range of cargo, including bulk solids and liquids, RORO and containers. When it’s completed in late 2015, Liverpool2 will be the UK’s leading transatlantic port and will be able to accommodate 95 per cent of the world’s fleet of container vessel types, linking with markets in the Americas, India, Far East, Caribbean, Mediterranean and the

Baltics. Liverpool 2 will be the central UK logistics hub, located at the heart of supply chains with the fastest and most efficient onward connections to the Irish Sea Hub. Over half of the UK population – 35 million people – are located within a 150-mile radius of the port. The area boasts the greatest density of warehousing, with over 400,000 sq ft of warehousing space and 10 motorways within 10 miles of the port. Very few other terminal operators in the UK can boast such connectivity and excellent multi-modal transport links Liverpool2 will also connect directly to a number of portcentric logistics hubs along the Manchester Ship Canal via barge. This will result in the development of the UK’s first “green logistics hub” which will reduce costs, congestion and carbon footprint for businesses importing and exporting to and from the North West of England, serving the manufacturing and consumption heartland of the UK. Work is currently underway at the Port of Liverpool to increase the channel depth and reclaim land to increase the size of the site. We are investing £100 million in eight ship-to-shore megamax quay cranes and 22 cantilever rail-mounted gantry cranes. We are making significant investment in future-proof technology which will improve the flow of information, our forecasting and our Real Time information system to enable us, as well as our customers, to benefit from a much more streamlined and cost-efficient movement of freight and cargo. Take delivery for example. Liverpool2 will be best placed to process goods for next day delivery with late order cut-offs. Order by 10 pm and orders will be uploaded onto trucks by 2.00 am. Goods will reach regional distribution centres as far away as Central Scotland and London by 6.00 am the next day. That will offer some of the best value door-to-door shipping service that cargo owners will find. Is it time for a paradigm shift? – a shipping ‘revolution’ or ‘evolution’ echoing the sentiments of the Industrial Revolution?

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

THUMBS-UP

SHOT … IN A PLANE! I

f ever Alexander and Nadja Laue are asked about the memorable event in their lives, they would, without any doubt, point to their wedding photos. Why? Simply because the shots, according to both of them, were taken in the most romantic of places: an aircraft and an airport. The dramatis personae: Alexander and Nadja Laue. The gentleman’s a pilot and the lady a flight attendant. The two

the only female flight attendant in the crew. And then came the decision to get married. But before everything else, the two decided that their wedding would be a memorable one. Their only wish: get themselves clicked at a location that would speak volumes about them. So Lufthansa Cargo chipped in to help the young couple. Named Charlie Bravo and Charlie November, Lufthansa Cargo selected the backdrop for the photos: the

cargo room, the cockpit and the engine. The deed was completed in two hours by photographer Janin Stötzner. He commented that “this is by far the most unusual location, where I have taken wedding pictures so far”. An expert photographer, she set the tone by draping the bride’s train over the engine, or placing the bouquet so that they create the magic of romance. The shoot happened on a sunny

v TOGETHER IN LIFE AND LOVE : (Clockwise from top) Alexander and Nadja Laue pose in the engine after their marriage vows, in the cockpit, in the cargo hold and on the runway. Photographer Janin Stötzner can be seen focusing her camera for a classic shot.

got acquainted with each other – of all places, in the air! It was on a A320 to Yekaterinburg. While First Officer Alexander Laue has been flying A340s for two and a half years, Nadja is a flight attendant in First Class after having completed an apprenticeship as a management assistant in hotels and hospitality in one of Berlin’s five-star hotels. Speaking about the love affair, Alexander said he fell in love with Nadja, since she was

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

Saturday morning last September before the actual ceremony at Schloss Alsheim but when it did, it turned eyes. Visitors waved out excitedly and some even took photos of the couple. Technicians, ground handlers and security staff were surprised when they saw the young pilot in a suit and a tie and the beautiful lady in white. The icing on the cake came when the photos were applauded not only by the couple and the photographer and all those who saw them at the airport, but also by thousands of Lufthansa Cargo Facebook fans who sent in comments like “Love storm”, “Wow…awesome…!!”, “Best… Wedding....Photo...Ever”.

STATS

TRAFFIC PORTS TRAFFICHANDLED HANDLEDAT AT MAJOR MAJOR PORTS (DURING APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 2014* VIS-A-VIS APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, 2013)

(*) TENTATIVE

(IN ' 000 TONNES)

PORTS

APRIL TO SEPTEMBER

% VARIATION

TRAFFIC

AGAINST PREV.

2014* 2

1 KOLKATA Kolkata Dock System

2013 3

YEAR TRAFFIC 4

6698

6055

10.62

Haldia Dock Complex

14062

14885

TOTAL: KOLKATA

20760

20940

-5.53 -0.86

PARADIP

35479

34119

3.99

VISAKHAPATNAM

30588

28936

5.71

KAMARAJAR (ENNORE)

14649

12676

15.56

CHENNAI

26717

26249

1.78

V.O. CHIDAMBARANAR

15716

14093

11.52

COCHIN

11355

10847

4.68

NEW MANGALORE

18230

19376

-5.91

6307

5159

22.25

MUMBAI

29831

27581

8.16

JNPT

32313

30930

4.47

KANDLA

46539

45951

1.28

288484

276857

4.20

MORMUGAO

TOTAL:

Source:INDIAN PORTS ASSOCIATION

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STATS

INDIAN PORTS ASSOCIATION

TRAFFIC HANDLED AT MAJOR PORTS TRAFFIC HANDLED AT MAJOR PORTS

(DURING APRIL TO 2014* VIS-A-VIS APRIL TO2013) SEPTEMBER, 2013) (DURING APRIL TOSEPTEMBER, SEPTEMBER, 2014* VIS-A-VIS APRIL TO SEPTEMBER, (*)

TENTATIVE

PORT

(IN '000 TONNES) TRAFFIC PERIOD

P.O.L.

IRON ORE

FERTILIZER FIN. RAW

COAL CONTAINER THERMAL COKING TONNAGE TEUs

OTHER CARGO

TOTAL

% VAR. AGAINST 2013-14

KOLKATA TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

289

3985

257

2271

6698

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

295

150

3726

238

1800

6055

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

2942

722

143

256

575

2586

940

5898

14062

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

2974

1129

119

198

842

2732

1129

5762

14885

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

3231

772

178

318

575

2592

4925

314

8169

20760

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

3269

1213

119

198

842

2882

4855

298

7562

20940

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

8944

1015

2188

13644

4302

5309

35479

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

9420

2719

1717

12804

3210

4207

34119

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

7603

5468

975

377

1252

2640

2379

134

9894

30588

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

6957

6273

1008

442

1364

3533

2533

131

6826

28936

KAMARAJAR(ENNORE) TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

1497

11738

141

1273

14649

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

949

10403

196

1128

12676

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

6328

158

15283

792

4821

26717

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

6978

131

14602

757

4473

26249

V.O.CHIDAMBARANAR TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

337

280

469

3889

5444

278

5297

15716

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

232

220

371

3538

5044

252

4688

14093

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

7476

193

2713

186

821

11355

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

7679

2456

178

629

10847

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014 10904

1144

303

1125

3190

493

1034

18230

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013 12189

1177

264

1715

2657

367

957

19376

Kolkata Dock System

Haldia Dock Complex TOTAL: KOLKATA

PARADIP

VISAKHAPATNAM

CHENNAI

COCHIN

NEW MANGALORE

MORMUGAO

MUMBAI

J.N.P.T.

KANDLA

ALL PORTS

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

292

228

490

3074

110

2029

6307

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

252

3487

112

1272

5159

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014 17814

110

151

2242

293

9221

29831

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013 17163

1837

215

8262

27581

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014

2081

28974

2233

1258

32313

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013

2455

27169

2061

1306

30930

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014 27739

456

1540

499

4545

132

- 11628

46539

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013 26959

435

1693

475

3978

149

452

29 11810

45951

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2014 94246

9144

3641

4390

39598

16071

60640

4006 60754 288484

TRF APRIL-SEPT.'2013 94502 11844

3471

3492

36481

16114

57833

3763 53120 276857

4.90

25.72

8.54

-0.27

4.85

% Variation from previous year

-0.27 -22.80

6.46

14.37

10.62

-5.53

-0.86

3.99

5.71

15.56

1.78

11.52

4.68

-5.91

22.25

8.16

4.47

1.28

4.20

Source:INDIAN PORTS ASSOCIATION

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

STATS

INTERNATIONAL FREIGHT INTERNATIONAL FREIGHT AIRPORT

SL. NO.

AUGUST 2014

ANNEXURE-IVA

FREIGHT (IN TONNES) For the period April - August % % 2014-15 2013-14 Change Change

For the month AUGUST 2013

(A) 18 INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 1

CHENNAI

19473

18350

6.1

96046

94161

2.0

KOLKATA*

3952

3883

1.8

19760

18459

7.0

AHMEDABAD

1528

1119

36.6

7256

6904

5.1

GOA

131

193

-32.1

454

788

-42.4

TRIVANDRUM

2189

3088

-29.1

12370

12268

0.8

CALICUT

1831

1549

18.2

9262

10368

-10.7

LUCKNOW

-4.5

596

475

25.5

GUWAHATI

0.0

SRINAGAR*

JAIPUR

194.1

208

123.7

BHUBANESWAR

MANGALORE

103

COIMBATORE

1.2

389

366

6.3

AMRITSAR

250

-78.4

190

638

-70.2

TRICHY

428

401

6.7

1924

1966

-2.1

VARANASI

PORTBLAIR

IMPHAL

0 29827

0 29020

0 146494

2.8

0 148566

1.4

TOTAL (B) 6 JV INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 19

DELHI (DIAL)

35012

31281

11.9

180710

160090

12.9

MUMBAI (MIAL)

39158

36302

7.9

199042

194626

2.3

BANGALORE (BIAL)

14235

12623

12.8

69583

64404

8.0

HYDERABAD (GHIAL)

4389

4035

8.8

22611

20851

8.4

COCHIN(CIAL)

5936

3160

87.8

28354

18351

54.5

NAGPUR (MIPL)

-17.6

132

143

-7.7

98744

87418

13.0

500432

458465

9.2

PUNE

TOTAL (C) 7 CUSTOM AIRPORTS 25 26

VISAKHAPATNAM

PATNA

CHANDIGARH BAGDOGRA

MADURAI

0 0

GAYA

TOTAL

(D) 17 DOMESTIC AIRPORTS

(E) OTHER AIRPORTS

128571

116438

10.4

648998

604959

7.3

29 30 31

GRAND TOTAL (A+B+C+D+E) *Estimated

Source: AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF INDIA

Cargo & Logistics I October 2014

STATS

DOMESTIC FREIGHT DOMESTIC FREIGHT SL. NO.

AIRPORT

AUGUST 2014

(A) 18 INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 1 CHENNAI 2 KOLKATA* 3 AHMEDABAD 4 GOA 5 TRIVANDRUM 6 CALICUT 7 LUCKNOW 8 GUWAHATI 9 SRINAGAR* 10 JAIPUR 11 BHUBANESWAR 12 MANGALORE 13 COIMBATORE 14 AMRITSAR 15 TRICHY 16 VARANASI 17 PORTBLAIR 18 IMPHAL TOTAL (B) 6 JV INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 19 DELHI (DIAL) 20 MUMBAI (MIAL) 21 BANGALORE (BIAL) 22 HYDERABAD (GHIAL) 23 COCHIN(CIAL) 24 NAGPUR (MIPL) TOTAL (C) 7 CUSTOM AIRPORTS 25 PUNE 26 VISAKHAPATNAM 27 PATNA 28 CHANDIGARH 29 BAGDOGRA 30 MADURAI 31 GAYA TOTAL (D) 15 DOMESTIC AIRPORTS 32 INDORE 33 JAMMU 34 RAIPUR 35 AGARTALA 36 VADODARA 37 RANCHI 38 AURANGABAD 39 UDAIPUR 40 BHOPAL 41 LEH 42 DEHRADUN 43 RAJKOT 44 JODHPUR 45 TIRUPATHI 46 DIBRUGARH (D) 17 DOMESTIC AIRPORTS (E) OTHER AIRPORTS GRAND TOTAL (A+B+C+D+E)

For the month AUGUST 2013

ANNEXURE-IVB

AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS(IN NOS.) For the period April - August % % 2014-15 2013-14 Change Change

7040 7644 3582 274 113 14 230 683 830 64 404 37 697 36 0 33 145 346 22172

5884 7219 3118 191 195 10 269 591 244 594 343 30 535 5 0 40 170 406 19844

19.6 5.9 14.9 43.5 -42.1 40.0 -14.5 15.6 240.2 -89.2 17.8 23.3 30.3 620.0 -17.5 -14.7 -14.8 11.7

32845 38220 17333 1210 548 55 1202 3520 3082 515 1898 163 3171 132 0 290 1071 1863 107118

29464 34619 14794 897 697 72 1191 2721 1768 3029 1424 126 2504 62 0 158 956 1666 96148

11.5 10.4 17.2 34.9 -21.4 -23.6 0.9 29.4 74.3 -83.0 33.3 29.4 26.6 112.9 83.5 12.0 11.8 11.4

22725 18280 10017 3641 1047 433 56143

17493 15495 7912 3071 809 487 45267

29.9 18.0 26.6 18.6 29.4 -11.1 24.0

106012 87409 45641 17377 4694 2303 263436

79703 74904 37277 14691 3745 2044 212364

33.0 16.7 22.4 18.3 25.3 12.7 24.0

2312 111 428 669 252 82 0 3854

1719 149 372 311 90 80 0 2721

34.5 -25.5 15.1 115.1 180.0 2.5 41.6

10803 2252 2251 3065 1130 466 0 19967

554 133 370 564 104 267 147 3 93 31 5 9 1 0 22 2303 119 84591

360 148 299 673 166 207 57 0 82 63 0 19 1 0 23 2098 143 70073

53.9 -10.1 23.7 -16.2 -37.3 29.0 157.9 13.4 -50.8 -52.6 0.0 -4.3 9.8 -16.8 20.7

2705 687 1619 2778 841 1321 488 3 378 564 9 52 4 0 108 11557 567 402645

7877 825 1913 1317 666 520 013118 1937 672 1349 2821 767 939 288 0 361 458 0 78 6 0 123 9799 596 332025

37.1 173.0 17.7 132.7 69.7 -10.4 52.2 39.6 2.2 20.0 -1.5 9.6 40.7 69.4 4.7 23.1 -33.3 -33.3 -12.2 17.9 -4.9 21.3

Source: AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF INDIA

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

We Deliver On Time...Anywhere

Corporate Office: 187-A, 2nd Floor, Sai Sadan, Sant Nagar, East of Kailash, Delhi-110065 Phone No.: 011-26214454, 26431222, 26211730 Email: brijesh@speedmanlogistics.com, pradeep@speedmanlogistics.com speedex_services@hotmail.com Website: www.speedmanlogistics.com Warehouse: 419-420, Lane No 1, Western Green, Rangpuri, Delhi-110037 Phone No.: 011-40502052

About Us SPEEDMAN LOGISTICS’ foray into logistics industry is not just for creating another logistics company. It is a lifetime commitment to excellence and trust that our customers can bank upon. Our infrastructural strength supports in feeding arround two thousand destinations in India. We are soundly backed by our customer support and professional staff members with full fleet of various vehicles.

Our Mission • To establish lifelong associations, retain clients and increase the number of customers trading every week. • Improve the percentage of deliveries made on time. • Decrease the number of outstanding invoice queries at the end of each week. • Increase the frequency of contacts with existing and prospective customers. • High-integrity workplace atmosphere. • Empowerment of employees.

Our Services Air Freight I Train Freight I Road Freight I Warehousing I Door to Door Logistics I Packaging Service I Supply Chain Management

www.speedmanlogistics.com

STATS

INTERNATIONAL & DOMESTIC FREIGHT FREIGHT (INT'L+DOM.) SL. NO.

AIRPORT

AUGUST 2014

(A) 18 INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 1 CHENNAI 2 KOLKATA 3 AHMEDABAD 4 GOA 5 TRIVANDRUM 6 CALICUT 7 LUCKNOW 8 GUWAHATI 9 SRINAGAR 10 JAIPUR 11 BHUBANESWAR 12 MANGALORE 13 COIMBATORE 14 AMRITSAR 15 TRICHY 16 VARANASI 17 PORTBLAIR 18 IMPHAL TOTAL (B) 6 JV INTERNATIONAL AIRPORTS 19 DELHI (DIAL) 20 MUMBAI (MIAL) 21 BANGALORE (BIAL) 22 HYDERABAD (GHIAL) 23 COCHIN(CIAL) 24 NAGPUR (MIPL) TOTAL (C) 7 CUSTOM AIRPORTS 25 PUNE 26 VISAKHAPATNAM 27 PATNA 28 CHANDIGARH 29 BAGDOGRA 30 MADURAI 31 GAYA TOTAL (D) 15 DOMESTIC AIRPORTS 32 INDORE 33 JAMMU 34 RAIPUR 35 AGARTALA 36 VADODARA 37 RANCHI 38 AURANGABAD 39 UDAIPUR 40 BHOPAL 41 LEH 42 DEHRADUN 43 RAJKOT 44 JODHPUR 45 TIRUPATHI 46 DIBRUGARH (D) 17 DOMESTIC AIRPORTS (E) OTHER AIRPORTS GRAND TOTAL (A+B+C+D+E)

NOTE:

For the month AUGUST 2013

ANNEXURE-IVC

AIRCRAFT MOVEMENTS(IN NOS.) For the period April - August % % 2014-15 2013-14 Change Change

26513 11596 5110 405 2302 1845 315 684 830 114 404 60 779 90 428 33 145 346 51999

24234 11102 4237 384 3283 1559 358 591 244 611 343 30 616 255 401 40 170 406 48864

9.4 4.4 20.6 5.5 -29.9 18.3 -12.0 15.7 240.2 -81.3 17.8 100.0 26.5 -64.7 6.7 -17.5 -14.7 -14.8 6.4

128891 57980 24589 1664 12918 9317 1798 3528 3082 723 1898 266 3560 322 1924 290 1071 1863 255684

123625 53078 21698 1685 12965 10440 1666 2729 1768 3122 1424 126 2870 700 1966 158 956 1666 242642

4.3 9.2 13.3 -1.2 -0.4 -10.8 7.9 29.3 74.3 -76.8 33.3 111.1 24.0 -54.0 -2.1 83.5 12.0 11.8 5.4

57737 57438 24252 8030 6983 447 154887

48774 51797 20535 7106 3969 504 132685

18.4 10.9 18.1 13.0 75.9 -11.3 16.7

286722 286451 115224 39988 33048 2435 763868

239793 269530 101681 35542 22096 2187 670829

19.6 6.3 13.3 12.5 49.6 11.3 13.9

2312 111 428 669 252 82 0 3854

1719 149 372 311 90 80 0 2721

34.5 -25.5 15.1 115.1 180.0 2.5 41.6

10803 2252 2251 3065 1130 466 0 19967

7877 825 1913 1317 666 520 0 13118

37.1 173.0 17.7 132.7 69.7 -10.4 52.2

554 133 370 564 104 267 147 3 93 31 5 9 1 0 22 2303 119 213162

360 148 299 673 166 207 57 0 82 63 0 19 1 0 23 2098 143 186511

53.9 -10.1 23.7 -16.2 -37.3 29.0 157.9 13.4 -50.8 -52.6 0.0 -4.3 9.8 -16.8 14.3

2705 687 1619 2778 841 1321 488 3 378 564 9 52 4 0 108 11557 567 1051643

1937 672 1349 2821 767 939 288 0 361 458 0 78 6 0 123 9799 596 936984

39.6 2.2 20.0 -1.5 9.6 40.7 69.4 4.7 23.1 -33.3 -33.3 -12.2 17.9 -4.9 12.2

Biju Patnaik Airport, Bhubaneswar, Odisha and Imphal Airport, Manipur airports declared as International airports vide Notification No.AV.20014/003/98-VB(AAI) dated 14th November, 2013 by Ministry of Civil Aviation, Government of India.

Source: AIRPORTS AUTHORITY OF INDIA

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

LAST PAGE

‘Logistics is always interesting and challenging’ For someone who had to literally push herself in to the cargo industry, Padma Handa comes across as a breath of fresh air. Eager to learn how the industry functions, she took on the mantle of Director, Sunrise Freight Forwarders, and decided early on to be proactive. Today, after more than half-a-dozen years, she is aware of the challenges in the forwarding scene and as a Member of the Managing Committee of the Air Cargo Club of Delhi (ACCD), Padma Handa has become a fire-fighter of sorts: ready to douse the flames that slow down the movement of air cargo C & L talked to Padma Handa. Excerpts: Cargo is essentially a male-dominated industry. How did you find yourself in it? Yes, it is difficult. It is a male-dominated industry. Due to certain health issues of my husband, there was a vacuum (in Sunrise Freight) and I left my job and stepped into the industry. After some initial hiccups it has been a smooth ride so far. How many years have you been with the cargo industry and how has the journey been this long? I joined in 2006. The journey has been good and it has been a learning experience. In fact, I am still learning and getting to know more about the industry, how those in it think and how they work. How have your colleagues and those under you reacted to you? Initially, some senior colleagues found it extremely difficult to cope and many of them left the organisation. Since then, many have come in and there have been no issues with them. Do you specialize in any section of the industry? I am mainly into Human Resources and partly in marketing. What is so exciting about the cargo industry that keeps you addicted to it? Logistics is always interesting and challenging. Challenges excite me. Every day is a challenge and one keeps learning. My takeaway is that one will remain young and active while in this industry. Being one of the part owners, there has been no lack of opportunity based on gender for me. Otherwise too, our organisation is extremely sensitive to gender issues. Women can take up any challenge that come their way. Women are supported throughout maternity issues far beyond the provisions of law. For women in particular, as well as other personnel, we encourage flexible working hours as well as working from home or from any offsite. What advice would you give youngsters – especially women – to join the industry? Have an open mind. With a positive attitude and hard work, the sky is literally the limit. It is an exciting industry, plenty of new things to learn, not mundane, the work content is not totally repetitive and there are plenty of challenges. One just needs common sense and the ability to shoulder responsibilities. What is most important is that one has to be proactive. One need not know rocket science to succeed in our industry.

October 2014 I Cargo & Logistics

RNI No. DELENG/2011/387546