Emirates SkyCargo sees Bangalore airport attracting Southern business

Emirates SkyCargo, the freight arm of Emirates, is upbeat on its operations from the Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) as its attracting more and more traffic from the whole of South India. “Perishables, flowers and readymade garments are the major contributors to outbound cargo to Europe, the Americas and West Asia,” said Ravishankar Mirle, Regional Manager — Cargo Commercial Operations, Emirates.

The airline on Thursday offers over 300 tonnes of cargo capacity a week from Bangalore to Dubai on the Airbus A330-200 and A340-300 aircraft. With a daily frequency of three flights from Dubai to Bangalore, Emirates has been moving from the city and the surrounding cities and towns items such as engineering goods, valuables, garments as well as chemicals.

Emirates has now become the biggest exporter from the Bangalore airport with 18 per cent of the exports through Bangalore airport being handled by it. About 35 per cent of the exports are made up of textiles and some 70 per cent of it comes from the city and surrounding areas. Emirates cargo capacity from Bangalore is on its passenger aircraft, with three of them operating in and out of the airport. For India, Emirates SkyCargo facilitates a capacity of around 3,000 tonnes a week to various points across the globe.

When most of APAC saw a fall in air cargo transport of about 15 per cent, India is said to have been the only one that held up with a mere 2 per cent fall in the cargo throughput. Meanwhile, imports through the airport is growing faster. While the imports grew 23 per cent, exports had grown 20 per cent. Mostly electronics and computer parts, mostly electronics.

Now Namdhari products are available in UK, something unheard of a few years ago, added Mirle. Keeping in view that India has been an important cargo market too for Emirates; it has managed to provide specialised solutions across 10 Indian destinations. Emirates SkyCargo offers special cool chain solutions which are designed for the movement of temperature sensitive commodities such as pharmaceuticals, vaccines and perishable goods.