India identifies 24 airports as air cargo terminals

India identified 24 airports for development as domestic air cargo terminals.

Shri Ashok Lavasa, India’s secretary for civil aviation, gave direction for drawing plans to develop domestic cargo terminals throughout the country. Lavasa said this will be part of the development of a national logistics network for faster movement of goods.

This is a continuation of the recent development of cargo terminal buildings at Coimbatore and Trichy airports.

Airports Authority of India also recently established a cargo facility at Mangalore Airport with an area of 1,400 square meters (15,069 square feet) for international cargo and 1,100 square meters (11,840 square feet) for domestic cargo. The Mangalore facility provides an annual holding capacity of 5,000 tonnes for international import cargo, 13,000 tonnes for export cargo, 18,000 tonnes for domestic in-bound cargo and 21,000 tonnes for domestic out-bound cargo.

Indian airports handled 4 percent more freight in 2013 than in the previous year. A growth rate of 5 percent is forecasted by 2017, with a rate of 8.2 percent after that.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation set up a working group to study air cargo logistics in India, and in May 2012, the group released a report saying there is a strong relationship between growth in international trade and logistics infrastructure.