Cargo handling at Chennai Airport up 23%

Cargo handling at Chennai Airport shot up by 22.7 per cent as of May compared to the year-ago period.
Revenues rose to Rs 27 crore from Rs 22 crore during the same period, a top airport official said today.
"Cargo handled up to May 2016 (from June 2015) was 42,765 tonnes as against 31,649 tonnes registered during the same period last year," Airport Director Deepak Shastri said.
Revenue from cargo handling was close to Rs 27 crore, against Rs 22 crore during the same period last year. "We have already begun reaping the benefits of our initiatives in cargo handling," Shastri told PTI.

On the efforts taken to improve facilities at the airport to ramp up cargo handling, he said, "The Airports Authority of India has introduced self-feeding of data by respective agents instead of depending on AAI officials."
"It means a separate counter has been provided, which has become an instant success as 50-100 consol related entries were fed by bulk agents directly," he said.

"Nokia Solutions, Lenovo, Foxconn, Nissan and BMW have started to increase their volumes through airport," he said.
A single window clearance system introduced for faster clearing of cargo was now functioning "effectively," he added.
Aimed at benefitting more industries in automobile and electronic sectors, a new concept in advanced planning has been introduced to help industries forward their day-to-day clearance plan to AAI well in advance, he said.

"The respective cargo will be kept on stand-by for delivery without wasting any time for locating the consignments. This has been facilitated for prompt delivery," he added.