- Air Astana, the flag carrier of Kazakhstan, launched nonstop widebody service from the nation’s capital of Astana to Bangkok, capital of Thailand. Operating twice a week, using one of the carrier’s thirty 767-300ERs, the route is part of a recent expansion of international trade between Astana and Southeast Asia. Since 2003, Air Astana has also operated daily direct 767-300ER service from the city of Almaty to Bangkok, carrying an aggregate total of 430,000 passengers since it began. Other destinations for Air Astana flights include Beijing; London; Baku, Azerbaijan; Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic; Omsk and St. Petersburg, Russia; and Tashkent, Uzbekistan, all of which were introduced since 2012.
- On Tuesday this week, freight forwarding and logistics firm Panalpina partnered with the United Nations Children’s Fund, a.k.a. UNICEF, and ground-handlers LuxairCARGO, to donate a charter flight from Luxembourg to Freetown in Sierra Leone to battle the Ebola virus outbreak. The special flight carried about 80 tons of supplies (pictured) and personal protection equipment – such as masks, hoods, aprons, rubber boots and tents – as well as antibiotics and antimalarial medications.
- Aircraft conversion firm Aeronautical Engineers, Inc. (AEI) has delivered its 400th passenger-to-freighter conversion: an 11-pallet-position 737-400SF, which rolled out of Commercial Jet’s facility in Miami on Dec. 15. The aircraft, owned by Vx Capital Partners, will be operated by express carrier TNT Airways of Liége, Belgium. AEI, which has re-delivered 26 P-to-Fs worldwide so far in 2014, also said it will offer an eight-pallet conversion for CRJ200SF aircraft and in late 2015 and a 12-pallet conversion of the 737-800SF in 2017.
- London-Heathrow Airport saw a rise in airfreight volume to 136,400 tonnes in November, a 2.3 percent increase over the previous November. The surge was fueled, in part, by higher cargo demand in Mexico, Brazil, India and Turkey. For the first 11 months of 2014, the U.K.’s top air cargo hub enjoyed a 5.3 percent increase in total volume, year-over year, to 1.37 million tonnes.
- Qatar Airways Cargo launched its first scheduled freighter service between Guangzhou, China, and the carrier’s hub in Doha, Qatar. The aircraft, an A330-200F, carried 54 tonnes of cargo from Baiyun International Airport (CAN) to Doha, representing he first cargo flight Qatar Airways has made in South China, outside of Hong Kong Airport. Qatar Airways Cargo plans to operate the route six times per week, bringing 5,000 tonnes of arifreight to CAN annually.
- After placed a provisional order for fifty A330neo aircraft at the Farnborough AirShow in July, AirAsia X has now converted those aircraft to firm orders and added five more, bringing the total to 55 ordered aircraft. The price tag for the new widebodies is expected to be about US$15 billion, according to Airbus.
- Third-party logistics firm UTi Worldwide, which has been the subject of takeover rumors involving DSV of Denmark, said its US$1.08 billion in revenues for the third quarter were down 6.6 percent, compared with the same period last year. The dip was caused by falling freight rates and restricting costs. Net revenue for Q3 2014 – after purchased transport costs – stood at US$381 million, down 3.1 percent, year-over-year, from $393.5 million in Q3 2013.
- Seven years after it was first proposed, a new air freight station (AFS) has opened in Chennai, India, operated by Hyderabad Menzies Air Cargo Pvt. Ltd, a joint-venture between GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited and Menzies Aviation Plc, based in London. The new Chennai operation is the second such Hyderabad Menzies facility to offer AFS services, after the one in Nagpur,India.
- Beijing Capital International Airport Co., Ltd. (BCIA) has signed an agreement with SF Express Group Co., Ltd.,which will create a new distribution center for SF Express at Beijing Capital International Airport (PEK). SF Airlines, a cargo airline owned by SF Express, will set up operations at PEK and gradually increase its capacity at the airport, launching international and regional routes from Beijing. PEK handled 1.84 million tonnes of cargo and mail in 2013.