Air India Cargo
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| Founded | 1954 | ||||||
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| Fleet size | 8 ( + 13 to be added in the Future) = 21 | ||||||
| Destinations | 14 | ||||||
| Parent company | National Aviation Company of India Limited | ||||||
| Headquarters | Mumbai, India | ||||||
| Website | http://home.airindia.in | ||||||
Air India Cargo is the cargo division of Air India, it is based in Mumbai. The airline operates freighter services to twelve domestic and two international cities.
History
Air India Cargo was set up in 1954, and started its freighter operations with a Douglas DC-3 Dakota aircraft, giving Air India the distinction of being the first Asian airline to operate freighters.
Services
A member of IATA, Air India carries all types of cargo including dangerous goods (hazardous materials) and live animals, provided such shipments are tendered according to IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations and IATA Live Animals Regulations.
At the warehouse in Mumbai, Air India has developed a system of inventory management for cargo handling of import/export functions. This takes care of the management of cargo, supports Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) messages with Indian Customs and replaces to a great extent paper correspondence between Customs, Airlines, and the custodians. This also replaces manual handling and binning of cargo at the warehouse in Mumbai by Air India.
Expansion
Air India are converting 7 of their Airbus A310-300 to cargo configuration in Germany, this conversion is at a cost of $7 million each, first two converted freighter aircraft are now operating for Air India Cargo with scheduled five weekly flights from Frankfurt, two services are routed via Dammam, with a total of 14 destinations involved. Air India will also be converting both their Boeing 747-300 Combi to full cargo configuration after the arrival of replacement aircraft.
The merger of Indian Airlines and its domestic subsidiary Alliance Air led to the acquisition of one Boeing 737-200C cargo aircraft from Alliance's fleet, plus 10 passenger Boeing 737-200's, three of these were phased out of service, while 5 have been converted at USA to cargo format, one of these also operated for Indian Airlines Cargo division for a brief period. All 6 aircraft are now flying Air India Cargo domestic routes, the remaining two 737s might be converted as well.
In November 2007, Air India partnered with GATI, a leader and pioneer in express distribution and supply chain solutions for a dedicated freighter Service.
Destinations
Air India Cargo serve the following cities, it also has ground truck-transportation arrangements on select destinations.
Asia
- India
- Ahmedabad - (Sardar Patel Airport)
- Bangalore - (Bangalore Airport)
- Chennai - (Meenambakkam Airport)
- Delhi - (Indira Gandhi Airport)
- Hyderabad - (Shamshabad Airport)
- Kochi - (Nedumbassery Airport)
- Kolkata - (Subhash Chandra Bose Airport)
- Kozhikode - (Karipur Airport)
- Lucknow - (Amausi Airport)
- Mumbai - (Chhatrapati Shivaji Airport)
- Thiruvananthapuram - (Trivandrum Airport)
- Vasco da Gama - (Dabolim Airport)
Europe
Fleet
Air India Cargo operate the follwing aircraft types:
| Aircraft | Total | Registration | Routes | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Airbus A310-300F | 2 | VT-EJH, VT-EQS, VT-EQT | Domestic, Europe, Gulf | 3 more at Dresden for conversion 1 more to be converted in future |
| Boeing 737-200F Adv | 6 | VT-EGF, VT-EGG, VT-EGI VT-EGJ, VT-EGM, VT-EHH |
Domestic | 2 more may be added, all Ex-Alliance Air |
The two Air India Boeing 747-300M are also planned for addition to cargo fleet.