Delhi airport welcomes UPS' latest freighter aircraft

GMR-led Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL) on Tuesday announced that UPS, a global leader in logistics, will route its latest freighter aircraft to India from Delhi Airport.This is a significant development as with this routing, businesses in North India will gain faster access to markets in the western countries, read a statement.UPS commenced its six weekly flights from Delhi with its Boeing 747-8F aircraft, the company's largest freighter aircraft, which came from Bangkok.

The company will operate its services with Boeing's B747-400, B747-8 and B767 aircraft.

It would operate B747 aircraft on Delhi (IATA-DEL) and Cologne (IATA-CGN) route, which is UPS's largest international hub, and Boeing 767 on Delhi (DEL)-Dubai (DXB)-Cologne (CGN) route.

"Delhi has emerged as a cargo hub for the businesses in North India and neighbouring countries. The service offered by UPS will give a boost to the cargo and logistics sector in the region. It will support businesses from Asia and enhance growth opportunities to markets in the west," said Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO-DIAL.Delhi Airport recently launched a Transhipment Excellence Centre (TEC) aimed towards creating Delhi as a transhipment hub. "The first landing of UPS's largest aircraft, from our fleet of newly acquired Boeing 747 - 8, at IGI Airport today, is another contribution to UPS's goal to make the global marketplace more accessible for global customers," said Rachid Fergati, UPS Managing Director for the Indian subcontinent.

"With the routing of our latest freighter aircraft to Delhi, businesses in North India will gain faster access to markets in Europe and the United States. We can now offer extended pickup time, later commercial clearance and shorter time in transit to capitalize on growth opportunities in these markets. We are thankful to Delhi Airport for giving the flight and its crew such a warm welcome," Fergati added.With three operational runways and nine freighter parking bays, Delhi Airport is India's largest and busiest airport. It is India's largest air cargo gateway. The airport has the cargo handling capacity of over 1.8 million MT annually, which can be scalable to 2.3 million MT, the statement said.

Delhi Airport has two state-of-the-art integrated cargo terminals, on-airport logistics centre to handle all types of cargo, such as textile, retail, electronics, perishable, pharma, project cargo, livestock, etc spread over an area of 150 acres, the statement added.In addition, as part of the ongoing Phase 3A expansion project, DIAL is constructing the fourth runway.Delhi Airport also has the largest airline network connecting 78 international and 71 domestic destinations served by 65 air carriers and 17 freighter airlines.