Bears have outnumbered
bulls on the Chinese economy this year, but actual transport demand has
been resilient and the anticipated slowdown in export and import volumes
at major gateways has failed to materialize, a fact more than apparent
at the country’s leading air cargo gateway, Shanghai Pudong International
Airport.
After a strong start to the year, May volumes
at PVG surged 8.5 percent year-on-year to 263,400 tons, led by a bump
in regional traffic of 21.7 percent and strong international cargo flows
which reached 198,700 tons, up 7.7 percent compared to a year earlier.
 Making
the most of this unexpectedly good year has been Shanghai Pudong Int’l
Airport Cargo Terminal (PACTL), the joint venture between Shanghai Airport,
Lufthansa Cargo, and JHJ Logistics Management set up in 1999 when PVG
started operations.
The company handled 45.5 percent of PVG’s
cargo last year and in the first four months of 2014 market share crept
up to 47.4 percent, according to Lutz Grzegorz, vice president of PACTL.
He said PACTL’s business had been
performing well since the start of 2013, after suffering from strong economic
headwinds in previous years. This translated into throughput in the first
four months of 2014 of 444,105 tons, up 14.3 percent year-on-year. “This
was the best result for the first four months in the history of the company,”
he said. “It beat the previous record set in 2011. Our domestic
cargo volume grew by 4.94 percent to 29,995 tons in the first four months,
while international cargo volume rose by 15.05 percent to 414,110 tons.
Imports grew by 16.4 percent to 180,736 tons, while exports showed an
increase of 12.90 percent to 263,369 tons.
“In 2014, so far we have been able
to continue the strong end-of-the-year-performance we achieved in 2013,
when we handled about 1.3 million tons of air freight, once again approaching
the outstanding results achieved in 2010.
“I’m optimistic for the rest
of the year. We still face an ongoing positive development in our domestic
business. Furthermore, we’ve been seeing a double-digit growth in
our international business throughout the first four months of this year,
especially in the volume of international imports.”
The shift of manufacturing industries inland
(where domestic consumption is rising) driving imports is changing the
nature of cargo demand in China, according to Grzegorz.
“Due to the growth of the air cargo
industry in mainland China, domestic air cargo transport has continued
to increasingly show a development far above average for quite some time
now,” he said.
Airlines are being aided by export and import
levels becoming more aligned, boosting the efficiency of operations. “Although
the double digit growth rates of China’s air cargo market are gone
now, a healthy plus of five percent on average can still be achieved year
by year, which is quite good compared to the other markets,” he
said.
“The domestic market will definitely
continue to gain importance within the Chinese airfreight industry, for
instance due to the predictable positive development within the e-commerce
sector.”
He expects the opening of a Free Trade Zone
at PVG last year to have a positive impact on the trading industry and
therefore strengthen the position of the airport as a major air cargo
hub. “We are still in the initial stages, but we are looking forward
to seeing more companies settle here and hoping for the close collaboration
of all parties involved,” he said. “I expect PACTL to further
benefit from this development.”
At the end of last year PACTL secured Shandong
Airlines, Angkor Air, UNI Air and EVA Air as customers and started providing
services to Kunming Airlines at the end of March this year.
Grzegorz insisted the company’s airline
shareholders do not benefit from priority treatment. “We are a neutral
handling agent offering a consistent service quality to all of our customers,”
he explained. “Lufthansa and JHJ joined
this project because they were interested in being able to support the
setup of certain handling processes and quality standards at PVG.”
He was also not concerned about the impact
of the EU’s ACC3 new security regime, which enters force on July
1. “Since 100 percent x-ray screening has been mandatory in China
for years, PACTL does not face any new or additional requirements in going
along with the new ACC3 security regime,” he said.
“In addition, PACTL undergoes on average
110 safety and security audits by customer airlines and authorities every
year.”
Looking forward, he said PACTL would continue
to invest to improve its handling services. “We are continuously
investing in new technologies and equipment,” he said. “For
example, we replaced diesel-powered forklifts with electric forklifts
in all three terminals. This will significantly lower our exhaust emissions
and thereby contribute to our environmental responsibility. In the near
future, we plan on enlarging our cooling facilities in order to further
develop our perishable business in general and, above all, to meet the
increasing demand for the transport of special cargo like pharmaceuticals.
“We’re also continuously improving
our IT system. We recently implemented an upgrade of our warehouse cargo
handling system [that] provides new opportunities for future technologies.
For example, we are testing new volume scanners featuring a direct interface
to our IT system.
“Last but not least, we recently received
our TAPA certification.”
Sky King |
