“Strong partnerships and innovation drive our India strategy”

What key factors drive India’s importance for Etihad Cargo, and how do you anticipate volumes evolving in 2025–26?

India has been a strategic market for Etihad Cargo for over 20 years, and our footprint now spans 11 cities that collectively represent approximately 90–95% of the nation’s GDP. This strong geographic spread, from tier-one metros to tier-two cities such as Jaipur, Calicut and Trivandrum, enables us to serve a wide array of regional economic hubs.

Our presence is underpinned by a mix of widebody and narrowbody aircraft. Widebodies cater to major cities, while narrowbodies serve emerging markets, ensuring both optimal capacity and high yield management.

India’s cargo volumes continue to grow at double-digit rates year-on-year, and we expect this positive trend to persist through 2025–26. This is being driven by rising demand across key verticals such as pharmaceuticals, high-value electronics, perishables and India Post mail shipments. With new business onboarded in these areas and consistently strong load factors across our flights, we forecast robust growth in the coming year. The driving force behind India’s continued importance to us is a diverse and high-yielding product mix. Etihad Cargo has developed a suite of specialized offerings, including PharmaLife, SecureTech and FreshForward, that allow us to optimize both revenue and operational efficiency while meeting evolving customer needs.

Handling over 46,000 tonnes annually from India and doubling PharmaLife volumes, how do you address key challenges for India’s pharma, electronics, and perishables sectors?

We’ve made significant progress in strengthening our vertical offerings through customer engagement and regional activation. In the past year, we conducted dedicated PharmaLife roadshows in Hyderabad and Delhi, and will soon expand these to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, and once again Hyderabad. These are complemented by our participation in leading industry forums and direct outreach by our global product leads to educate the market on our capabilities.

PharmaLife, in particular, has seen 100 per cent growth over the past two years, and with continued investments, such as cool dollies and the opening of Abu Dhabi’s new state-of-the-art terminal, our handling infrastructure has become a strong differentiator. These enhancements ensure temperature integrity and reduce risk across the supply chain.

SecureTech has also proven highly effective in handling high-value electronics, with consistent customer feedback validating the strength of our service. As India ramps up domestic production of electronics, especially in segments like smartphones, we see SecureTech as a major growth engine for Etihad Cargo.

For perishables, we’ve adapted our strategy to enable uplift via narrowbody aircraft from tier-two and tier-three cities. A recent success was the uplift of over 4,000 kilos of perishables from Kolkata to Abu Dhabi, a record-setting load for a narrowbody from that station. This flexibility has allowed us to maximize our network potential and cater to seasonal and regional demands more effectively.

Can you outline your current and planned capacity or network expansions—such as additional freighter services, belly-hold increases, or new routes— to support India’s trade growth over the next two years?

At present, Etihad Cargo does not operate scheduled freighter services to India. However, we remain agile and responsive to market demand through ad-hoc freighter deployments. These are approved based on strong business cases submitted to our network planning team.

We currently operate at least one charter or ad-hoc freighter per month and, for May, we already have multiple freighter flights scheduled. While there are no immediate plans to introduce scheduled freighters, we are closely monitoring market trends and stand ready to scale up as demand stabilizes.

As for new routes, any strategic expansions, whether via freighters or belly-hold capacity, will align with overall demand trends, customer requirements and network priorities. While we cannot disclose specifics at this time, our approach remains flexible, data-led and opportunity-driven.

What key infrastructure upgrades, policy reforms or stakeholder collaborations should India prioritise to transform airports like Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru into world-class air cargo gateways?

India’s major airports are undergoing transformative upgrades and we are encouraged by the progress. Bengaluru has already begun implementing infrastructure improvements that are streamlining cargo flows, while Mumbai and Delhi are making similar strides.

In parallel, the development of new airports, such as Navi Mumbai and Noida International Airport, is a positive indicator of India’s long-term commitment to strengthening its logistics capabilities.

Stakeholder collaboration is also improving. We maintain close ties with airport authorities and ground handlers, which allows us to anticipate and adapt to infrastructure changes. Continued investment in cargo terminals, automation, cold chain infrastructure and multimodal connectivity will be critical for achieving global standards.

Are there any additional key issues or points regarding air cargo movement in the region that you would like to highlight?

India’s air cargo ecosystem is currently in a positive, collaborative phase. We are seeing stronger partnerships with airport authorities and ground handlers such as WFS and Menzies, with a shared focus on operational efficiency and innovation.

Bonded trucking and inter-airport connectivity are also gaining traction, enabling a more seamless cargo experience across the country. The appetite for innovation, combined with a customer-first mindset across the ecosystem, positions India as a rapidly maturing market for global air cargo players like Etihad.