Teleport, the logistics venture of Capital A (formerly AirAsia Group Berhad) has announced the expansion of its fleet with the addition of three Airbus A321 Freighters (A321F).
This increases Teleport's cargo-only fleet to four freighters in total, in addition to over 200 exclusive AirAsia passenger aircraft belly that it utilizes.
In its announcement, the Kuala-Lumpur based logistics venture said the three A321Fs will be operated by AirAsia and will be delivered in stages starting in Q1 of 2023.
Freighter fleet expansion
"The addition of the A321F's into Teleport's fleet provides the unique loadability and body composition where it allows for containerised loading in both the main deck and lower deck," Teleport said.
It added that these narrowbody freighters will also greatly strengthen Teleport's cargo network and address the diversifying market demand within Southeast Asia and the overall Asia-Pacific region.
Pete Chareonwongsak, chief executive officer of Teleport noted the e-commerce growth in the region which is boosting demand for air cargo services.
"It is a timely and strategic move on our part to complement our exclusive AirAsia passenger belly planes with a freighter network to expand and reinforce our increased capacity for key markets like China and India into ASEAN," Chareonwongsak said, adding that the combined fleet approach with multi-hub freighter and belly operations will give Teleport a unique 'many to many' network advantage to serve its customers in this region.
"E-commerce continues to be the main force propelling air cargo growth around the region and here at Teleport, especially with key growth in segments like international cross border e-commerce and express shipping," the Teleport chief said.
Each A321F, leased from BBAM Limited Partnership (BBAM), can carry up to 27 tons of cargo per flight which is ideal considering the surge in market demand for air cargo to fulfill both small scale items of ecommerce and bigger scale of volumetric cargo.
Francis Anthony, head of commercial cargo at Teleport noted that the addition of these freighters creates an "added availability of skidded cargo capacity for key markets like China, which will allow us to load pre-packed, larger cargo in a secure manner."
"Through the exclusive AirAsia network, which gives Teleport access to a multi-hub operating model, these three freighters will be seamlessly positioned across AirAsia's key markets like Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia," he said.
"This allows Teleport the agility to take advantage of each hub-country's unique geographical strengths, air traffic rights and cater to every possible dimension of regional demand."
Anthony noted that coupled with AirAsia's extensive network of narrow and wide body passenger planes in the region, Teleport's service offering will put the company in a "unique position" to better serve more segments in the market.
Teleport said it currently has the largest cargo network with the widest destination coverage in Southeast Asia, encompassing over 160 cities and access to 252 wide-body and narrow-body aircraft.
