Dubai: Emirates, bullish on its growing cargo business, is considering launching a second dedicated freighter service to Columbus, Ohio in the United States, Nabil Sultan, Divisional Senior Vice President of Cargo, told reporters on Tuesday at the Dubai Airshow.
Emirates SkyCargo, the airlines cargo unit that operates 50 dedicated freighter routes, grew by 10 per cent in six months to September 30, 2015 with the unit carrying 1.25 million tonnes. The airline is bucking the global trend that has seen air cargo volumes dip 1.2 per cent in first nine months of the year, according to data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA).
There are concerns global trade will continue to dip into 2016 with economic jitters in both China, the world’s second biggest economy, where trade has fallen by 8.5 per cent in the first 10 months of 2015, and in parts of South America.
Sultan said SkyCargo has seen a “slight decline” in China, where it operates 10 dedicated freighters a week in addition to 21 freighter services to Hong Kong, and that he is “yet to see if there will be any improvement.”
But the airline is confident of growing its business beyond the 15 dedicated freighter services it flies out of Al Maktoum International at Dubai World Central (DWC) where it officially opened its cargo centre Emirates SkyCentral on Tuesday. There are also plans to increase handling capacity to 1 million tonnes by 2017/2018, up from 810,000 tonnes today.
Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chief Executive and Chairman of Emirates airline and Group, told reporters after opening the facility Emirates will be “absolutely introducing more freighter aircraft,” however, he did not say when. The 15 freighters include 13 Boeing 777 Freighters that can carry up to 100 tonnes and 2 747 Freighters capable of carry 118 tonnes.
Emirates relies on its 226 wide body passenger aircraft to transport 70 per cent of all the cargo the airline carriers each year and has another 267 wide bodies on order but no freighters. In the financial year ending March 31, 2015 Emirates handled 2.3 million tonnes of cargo, most from Dubai International.
“The North American economy has seen good growth over the last few years and that’s probably where we will focus a lot of our capacity growth,” Sultan said.
Emirates recently added a fourth dedicated cargo freighter service into Chicago in the United States with the airline also flying their daily with a Boeing 777-300ER (extended range) that can hold between 20 and 25 tonnes of cargo.
“North America — and Africa — are strong growing markets,” Henrik Ambak, senior vice-president — cargo operations worldwide, told reporters.
Emirates is also bullish on South America despite economic concerns in Brazil, the largest country on the continent, with the country’s Central Bank saying on Monday its economy will shrink by 3.10 per cent this year, with the inflation rate hitting 9.99 per cent.
“We’ve seen some growth,” Sultan said, but adding that Emirates SkyCargo will pull capacity out of non-performing routes if required.
“We are quite agile and flexible … to move the capacity wherever we see,” he said.
Elsewhere, Ambak said “Europe is doing better than some people think.”
Emirates plans to increase handling capacity at SkyCentral to 12 million tonnes by 2050.
