The UAE’s only dedicated cargo-agnostic airline operating express daily scheduled services between Dubai and high-yield key trade routes across the Global South, started operations last year with a Boeing 737 freighter plans to connect and service 50 cities within a six-hour flight radius of the UAE through its air cargo network.
“Based on cost and investment coming into India, we are talking anywhere between USD 20-25-million investment in the Indian market in the first year,” Osman told PTI.
The company launched its freighter services to Bengaluru in January this year.
He said that this investment could be doubled and tripled in the next 2-3 years as the company expands its network and increases the frequency of its services and that will be a big thing for the company.
Noting that India is very critical to global trade with the country neck-to-neck with China in terms of trade, he said India is number one or two to none when it comes to pharmaceuticals while the technology is coming right behind and many other things, of course. “So to us, Delhi and Mumbai are very important gateways. Bangalore is another very big gateway. Ahmedabad, where the pharmaceuticals come from the south, is also a very important gateway to us. So we are looking at all four or five gateways to be able to fly in and out of India,” he said. According to him overnight express (12-14 hours) is the name of the game amid the increasing demand for the mid-mile (airport-to-airport) logistics operators going forward.
“We live in a new era called customer expectation, especially with e-commerce, with the new generation that we see ( in this era) people like us will be in demand, and I see it already happening since October when we started,” he added.
Earlier this month, the company appointed GAC Shipping (India) Private Limited as its cargo sales agent (CSA) in India. GAC Shipping (India) Private Limited is part of the GAC Group, a global provider of shipping, logistics and marine services with more than 300 offices in over 50 countries worldwide.
As SolitAir’s cargo sales agent, GAC will draw on its deep local market knowledge and extensive network of 28 full-fledged offices nationwide to provide comprehensive sales and marketing services to the cargo operator in the domestic market.
As part of its long-term plans, the cargo airline is looking to operate flights in Africa; the Middle East Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the Indian Subcontinent and countries such as Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
