Thai Airways introduced its first Boeing 747 freighter flights to India from Hyderabad on Thursday. It will deploy its second freighter from next month connecting Chennai to various European destinations.
Its first Boeing freighter, with a capacity of 100 tonnes, touched down in Hyderabad from Bangkok en route to Frankfurt. It will initially be a weekly service, with the airline having plans to increase frequency depending on demand.
The second freighter will connect Bangkok-Chennai-Amsterdam, facilitating air shipment of cargo to over 30 European destinations from Chennai. The airlines' strategy will be to consolidate various cargoes such as pharma products, electronic components, fresh fruits, flowers and textile from different regions across India at Hyderabad and Chennai airports for onward movement to Europe.
In addition, the airline may deploy chartered freighters and use additional belly space in its passenger flights to carry cargo from Hyderabad, Chennai and Delhi as demand picks up.
"We have major plans for the air cargo market in India, which we think has immense potential," Mr Pichai Chunganuwad, Managing Director of Thai Airways' Cargo and Mail Division, told media persons here.
The airline, which reported an almost flat growth in cargo throughput in 2011 at 700,000 tonnes, expects growth in the freight sector to be 10 per cent this year. "We have registered encouraging numbers in the first three months this year. We expect the second half to generate more cargo traffic," Mr Pichai said.
The airline will be earmarking an exclusive portion in the Boeing freighter to stack up heavy-density cargoes, for which it will be charging a premium. "We see a lot of potential in using this space for carrying aircraft engines of various airlines for maintenance and repair to different places in Asia. We will also be carrying high-density engineering and machinery components," Mr Pichai said.
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