IA to deliver 5 cargo aircraft to GATI

New Delhi, Aug 26: Country's domestic carrier Indian Airlines, now a part of National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL), has said it will deliver five freighter aircraft at an undisclosed amount to Hyderabad-based express logistics firm GATI by November end this year.

''All the paper works have been completed. We hope that GATI will get the delivery within the next two to three months,'' NACIL Joint Managing Director Vishwapati Trivedi said told the sources here.

He, however, refused to disclose the amount of the deal.

In May this year, GATI had signed a wet lease agreement, titled IC-Zipp, with Indian Airlines for five Boeing 737-200 freighter aircraft, to run these cargo freighters on various routes to cover all metro cities and other parts of the country.

The freighters will be leased for a period of five years to GATI, Dr Trivedi said.

Under the agreement, GATI and Indian Airlines will jointly do branding, advertisement and launch-related activities, while Indian Airlines will provide aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance.

GATI's air cargo and courier business is over Rs 40 crore, and the deal could increase it to more than Rs 200 crore within two years.

Recently, Indian Airlines had given an aircraft, carrying a payload of 14 tonnes daily, on lease for one year to the India Post for its maiden air freighter service to the North Eastern region starting from August 29.

The aircraft will display the logos of the merged carrier and India Post. The Boeing 737-200 leased to the India Post is the first among the six Indian Airlines aircraft which have been transformed from passenger aircraft into freighters. ''We plan to connect all the metro cities by this air freighter service in a phasewise manner on the basis of the volume of our services by the end of this financial year,'' Department of Posts General Manager (Business Development and Marketing Directorate) John Samuel said.

Besides, the freighter for North East, the DoP also proposed to induct at least four more aircraft for servicing its other sectors during the Eleventh Five Year Plan to cover rest of the country.

''We need to induct more aircraft to take the air freighter service forward across the country,'' Secretary to the Department of Post (DoP) I M G Khan said.

India Post CGM and BD and MD Mr S Samant said, ''In case of Indian Airlines not providing the freighter aircraft to the India Post, we will induct aircraft from the private company through an open tender.'' After the merger of Indian Airlines and Air-India into a new company called National Aviation Company of India Ltd (NACIL) which got a formal nod from the Ministry of Corporate Affairs yesterday, the national carrier will have a dedicated cargo unit called Air India cargo, which will deploy the transformed freighter aircraft.

The merged airline will fly under the brand of Air India both domestically and internationally.

The new airline will have a combined fleet size of over 112 aircraft, comparable to the best airlines in Asian region, and will rank among the top 30 airlines in the world.

As part of its fleet acquisition programme of 111 aircraft, the new airline will induct 21 new aircraft (seven Boeing 777, 10 Airbus 320 family aircraft and four Boeing 737-800) this year itself.

UNI