MUMBAI (February 24, 2016) – The aviation industry and airlines in particular will need to do more to unlock the potential of the air-freight market in India, according to airline executives speaking at the Air Cargo India 2016 conference.

“For me, it boils down to three things – infrastructure, bureaucracy and digitization,” said Alexis von Hoensbroech, member of the executive board at Lufthansa Cargo. “With ‘Make In India,’ we’re addressing exactly those issues and I think that’s really what needs to be done.”

Von Hoensbroech said that, to grow the country’s pharmaceutical industry, a working cool chain is “an absolute must,” and that includes road infrastructure as well as airport facilities.

In terms of bureaucracy and digitization, he said that the paperwork process currently takes far too long and that India’s entrepreneurial spirit should be able to make a difference.

“One shipment will sometimes have up to 30-35 different documents,” said von Hoensbroech. “Sometimes the document box is larger than the shipment itself – that’s ridiculous.”

Domestic connectivity has also been presenting problems for cargo carriers.

“I think as industry leaders, we have to get together and focus on how we create a true hub-and-spoke model in India,” said Jacob Matthew, president of the Middle East and Asia and executive board member of National Air Cargo. “Hub-and-spoke is not something new and has been done repeatedly all over the world, so I don’t think it’s a difficult task.”

Rainer Mueller, vice president of commercial at Saudia Cargo, said that those responsible for clearing cargo in India sometimes leave it sitting for days in the warehouse and do nothing about it.

“Why are we as the airlines accepting it?” said Mueller. “Why aren’t we sitting down with our customers and saying, ‘This is not good – let us work on that’?” This is something that we hold in our hands.”

[The full version of this story will be published in the March issue of Asia Cargo News.]