are a big cargo carrier in the subcontinent.
You are gradually growing your cargo services across the globe. How is this expansion going? If you only carry cargo to and from the Kingdom, this is still a big market. But if we want to fill our planes with air freight, then we must step into global markets. The fastest-growing part of our air freight business is in transit cargo. Our geographic location means we can carry cargo from Europe, Asia, the subcontinent, Africa and the US and tranship it through our hubs in Saudi Arabia to and from any other part of the globe. To help us in this effort, we have recently realigned our freighter services to Europe and the US.
What is the size of the Saudi Arabian Airlines fleet and how many freighters does Saudi Airlines Cargo Company offer? Saudi Airlines Cargo operates scheduled cargo services with 12 freighters and sells a massive amount of bellyhold capacity on around 140 passenger aircraft for Saudi Arabian Airlines. Many of these aircraft are widebody equipment with a good bellyhold cargo capacity. We are currently replacing some of the passenger equipment with new aircraft. At the moment we have four owned MD-11 freighters and the rest are B747Fs on ACMI (aircraft, crew maintenance and insurance) leases, plus an A310F that we use on regional routes.
“THE FASTEST- GROWING PART OF OUR AIR FREIGHT BUSINESS IS IN TRANSIT CARGO”
The company is currently upgrading the facilities at its main cargo hubs in Saudi Arabia. How is the work progressing? It’s going well. We are getting a lot of new equipment delivered and coming on-line, so we are beginning to see the improvements. The Cargospot terminal management system was implemented last December. Things are moving and we still have a long way to go, but it’s at a better level than it was before we started … a significant improvement.
With all this global expansion going on, what are the cargo opportunities for the airline within Saudi Arabia? The Kingdom is a big market. Saudi Arabia is very stable and its economy is booming. There was about 4-5 percent growth in the country’s GDP last year. There are very significant investments being made to expand the country in areas other than its oil business. Saudi Arabia has a very young, well-educated population that is growing very fast. There are plenty of well-educated people around who want to enter the employment market on a global level. In the next 20 years the population is forecast to double.
You have a new cargo product that utilises the extensive Saudi Arabian Airlines passenger network, can you describe what this will bring to the market? We have a lot of seasonality in our passenger services, so we are now offering BellyFlex – a low-end cargo product with longer transit times at hubs and attractive rates. When the price is more important to you than time, we will deliver less urgent shipments of normal-sized cargo within a transit time of four to eight days from origin to destination. Some people might like to always fly first class, but they can’t always afford it – well, we
“THERE ARE VERY SIGNIFICANT INVESTMENTS BEING MADE TO EXPAND THE COUNTRY IN AREAS OTHER THAN ITS OIL BUSINESS”
will guarantee that if your air freight can wait a few days, we can provide a first-class service at economy prices.
What else is new on the horizon? We are introducing a twice-weekly B747 freighter service to the Vietnamese commercial centre of Ho Chi Minh City at the end of March as a destination on our operation from Hong Kong to King Khaled International airport in Riyadh. This commercial city is an emerging market. With China becoming more expensive, production is increasingly being moved to Vietnam and other developing countries. The new service enables us to expand out network in response to changing market conditions.
Q&A
AIR LOGISTICS MANAGEMENT 53
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