Archive for the 'air cargo' Category

When Pang Yuliang from Zhengzhou in Henan province made a multimillion euro bid to buy an airport in Schwerin, Germany, he had the interest of millions of fellow beer fanciers in mind.

‘Every beer drinker in China knows Germans make great beer,’ the 40-something entrepreneur reportedly said. In this has has the full, nay enthusiastic support of this writer.

He added, ‘But how many people in China have tasted really fresh German beer?’ The answer is: ‘They will, after I’m done with building up the airport as planned.’

As Pang, founder and chairman of LinkGlobal Logistics, envisaged it, Parchim International Airport will be an important gateway to the growing trade between China and Germany. The flights will carry more than beer.

His grand plan for Parchim included building a 1 million sq m free trade zone for Chinese enterprises angling for greater access to the European market by establishing manufacturing facilities there.

Pang said the project will be carried out in cooperation with Nanjing Hi-tech Development Zone, which houses more than 1,700 enterprises.

LinkGlobal’s spokesman said flying goods directly from Urumqi to Parchim would be shorter and would cost significantly lower than the usual routes with stopovers in Dubai and elsewhere in the Emirates. And the beer will be fresher.
Source: English People’s Daily Online

Tianjin, the largest port city in north China, has opened its first air cargo route to Europe using a Boeing 747-400.

Chen Kaiping, the president of Great Wall Airlines, the joint venture cargo airline that is operating the route said the service will fly to Amsterdam three times a week and to Manchester via Amsterdam twice a week.

He also said, which seems to be certain, that the service will help Binhai International Airport in Tianjin become north China’s cargo hub.

Great Wall Airlines was established by Beijing Aerospace Satellite Application, Singapore Airlines Cargo and Dahlia Investments in 2005.
Source: China View

Great Wall Airlines is now flying a freighter service to Tianjin. The new cargo flights will be operated by its B747-400 freighter fleet with a frequency of five flights a week flying the Pudong-Tianjin-Amsterdam route and two routed through Pudong-Tianjin-Amsterdam and Manchester.

Great Wall Airlines is the first carrier to offer direct schedules on all-cargo flights to Europe from Tianjin.

President of Tianjin Binhai International Airport Shao Dengxiang said. ‘Our plans to improve airport facilities are proceeding well. By 2010, the annual cargo turnover at Tianjin Airport will reach 500,000 tonnes.’

President of Great Wall Airlines Tan Kai Ping said. ‘in a few months, we will be announcing the launch of services to the United States.’

Great Wall Airlines is an all cargo airline based in Shanghai Pudong Airport. It operates a fleet of three B747-400 freighters, with a network covering the major cargo hubs of Amsterdam, Manchester and Dubai.
Source: CargoNews International

On June 21, last year we reported China Southern Airlines, China’s largest carrier by fleet size, planned to form a cargo venture with Air France-KLM Group. Then on July 5, 2007 we reported an agreement to sign an agreement had been signed. Now the story is that it plans to form a cargo venture with Air France-KLM Group this year.

So, yes, it is taking a while but it is happening.

Chinese airlines are handling more cargo because of growing exports of computer equipment, mobile phones and auto parts. World air cargo traffic will likely grow at an average annual rate of 6.1% in the next 20 years, according to Boeing.

China Southern Airlines flew 57 million passengers and 863,000 tonnes of cargo last year.
Source: The Star

A joint venture between Korean Air and Sinotrans Air Transportation Development is expected to be launched as Galaxy International in the first half of this year.

Kim Dae-heui, Korean Air’s general manager for cargo in China said Galaxy International will be based at Tianjin Binhai International Airport.

Korean Air, the world’s largest commercial cargo airline, first announced plans in 2006 to set up a cargo joint venture with Sinotrans Air, a subsidiary of Sinotrans, China’s biggest logistics company. So it is two of the largest players in the air cargo logistics getting together in possibly the world’s largest market.

The cargo joint venture has registered capital of $65 million, with Sinotrans Air controlling a 51% stake and Korean Air holding 25%. The remainder is held by two South Korean investment companies — Hana Capital and Shinhan Capital.

Kang Kyoo-won, Korean Air’s managing vice-president for China, said, ‘Sinotrans Air’s domestic network and Korean Air’s extensive international network will be complementary.’

The South Korean carrier’s cargo business in China accounted for 25% of its total cargo revenue last year.

With annual growth of 17% in the past decade, China has become one of the world’s fastest growing air cargo markets. Route network details for Galaxy International are not yet available.
Source: China Daily

Air China aims to make Air China Cargo a wholly owned subsidiary. To do that it is negotiating with Beijing Capital Airport to buy its 24% stake in the country’s largest cargo carrier.

China Airlines Board Secretary Huang Bin said, ‘We did talk with Beijing Capital Airport about the purchase of their shares in the Air China Cargo carrier, but so far no substantial progress has been made.’

In December, China Airlines announced plans to raise its stake in Air China Cargo to 76% from 51% through the purchase of Gold Leaf Enterprise Holdings’ stake in Air China Cargo shareholder Langxing Co.

In one sense this all looks a bit odd because Beijing-based Air China Cargo has had operating losses in recent years and reported a net loss of RMB382 million ($53.4 million) in the first nine months of 2007.

China Airlines, in explaining this, referred to ‘an increase of freighters that resulted in low aircraft utilization rates’ and ‘management problems.’

Note that China Airlines brought up the possibility of a cargo joint venture with China Eastern Airlines when discussing its recent bid for its rival.

China Eastern runs a profitable subsidiary in China Cargo Airlines so if Air China had been able to cooperate with China Eastern Airlines in reorganizing Air China Cargo to work with China Cargo Airlines successfully it might be possible, at a later date, to merge the two.

All of this appears to be on hold until August because China Eastern says it has a legally binding agreement with Singapore Airlines to do nothing until then.

There will be much more negotiating before this little lot is brought to a successful conclusion.
Source: ATW Daily News

Swift Global Logistics is planning to increase its operations in the Far East after receiving WOFE (Wholly Owned Foreign Enterprise) status from the Chinese government.

The trade licence, which allows foreign companies to operate in China without a local partner, has previously been awarded to logistics players such as UPS, Gulf Agency Company (GAC) and Maersk Logistics.

Issa Baluch, chief executive officer of Swift Group, the Dubai-based owner of Swift Global Logistics, and seen here, said, ‘This is another important development in the our mission to provide innovative logistics solutions to a wider spectrum of clients throughout the world.

‘The number of international freight forwarders who have been awarded the WOFE licence is extremely limited.’

Swift Global Logistics will now operate as a wholly owned entity in China, providing a range of sea freight, airfreight and 3PL services in the local market. In particular, the company is planning to market its SAM (Sea Air Model) service, which combines sea-air transportation from cities such as Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Yiwu and Guangzhou to locations throughout Africa.
Source: Arabian Business

The SAL Logistics Enterprises Alliance – Shanghai Airlines (SAL), China United Airlines, SAL Cargo International, SAL International Cargo Services, Shanghai Crane Transportation and Dahang International Transportation — is being called China’s first air logistics alliance.

It is up against the established heavies – DHL, FedEx, TNT and UPS – and they are all fighting for for a slice of the Shanghai market.

Last November DHL established a North Asia hub project at Pudong while UPS set up its Asia transfer center at the airport.

Thus the competition is great.

SAL chairman, Zhou Chi. said the new alliance is trying to position itself alongside Shanghai’s developing logistics sector.

SAL owns about 70 freight and passenger aircraft, which operate on about 30 international and regional routes and around 170 domestic destinations.

The group’s network covers more than 60 medium-sized and large cities in China and overseas.

By 2010, SAL plans to own 100 aircraft.
Source: AirCargo Asia Pacific

A contradiction in terms but China’s fast developing express service industry may slow down in 2008. The fault will lie wih the US economy which is suffering from the sub-prime, dodgy loans which have been such a feature of its financial field.

Logistics Association China puts forward a scenario where foreign majors represented by DHL and Federal Express will tap the chance of Beijing 2008 Olympic Games to reinforce their leading positions in the Chinese market, while domestic players, especially private ones, which feature smaller business volume, weaker capital strength and poorer management, will start to have a rough time.

China’s express service industry has been growing at a pace of around 30% in recent years and become one of the fastest growing markets of the world.

True, but DHL China, which should know, states signs of a slowdown actually appeared in 2007 this despite the fact the Chinese market still maintained steady growth.

Another major foreign player, Federal Express China, is more optimistic, working on the the basis the Chinese economy to a degree can be independent from world market changes, It is certain that domestic express service market will continue stable growth momentum although the view of domestic analysts is that with the market base getting increasingly bigger, the growth of domestic express service industry will get slower as compared to years ago.
Source: CargoNews Asia

As we suggested on April 19th, 2007 United Parcel Service by November should have a one million-square-foot air cargo hub in Shanghai. It will be the first U.S. cargo carrier to open a hub in China.

UPS is not saying what it cost but it has already invested about $600 million in China in the past five years and a guess is it will be a lot more than that.

Stephen Hoedt, UPS analyst with National City Wealth Management in Cleveland, said, the hub will help position the carrier to penetrate ‘what probably, over the next 20 to 30 years, will be the largest domestic delivery market on Earth.

‘China is going to continue to be the manufacturing floor for the world. It’s also a growing market domestically.’

The new hub, plans for which were announced last spring, is expected to employ more than 1,000 by 2010 and serve cities in China as well as the United States, Europe and other parts of Asia.

The around-the-clock operation will accommodate larger, longer-range Boeing 747-400 freighters, compared with MD-11 aircraft that UPS handles out of China.
Source: MSBNC