KUALA LUMPUR: TELEPORT, the logistics venture of Capital A Bhd, is expanding its fleet with the addition of three Airbus A321 freighters.
These new additions will increase Teleport's cargo-only fleet to four freighters in total and over 200 exclusive AirAsia passenger aircraft belly.
Teleport chief executive officer Pete Chareonwongsak said this is a strategic move to complement the company's exclusive AirAsia passenger belly planes with a freighter network to expand and reinforce its increased capacity for key markets like China and India and into ASEAN.
Chareonwongsak said the combined fleet approach with multi-hub freighter and belly operations would give us a unique "many to many" network advantage to serve our 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," he said.
The three A321Fs will be operated by AirAsia and delivered in stages starting in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023.
The addition of the A321Fs into Teleport's fleet provides a unique load ability and body composition, allowing for containerised loading in both the main and lower decks.
These narrow-body freighters will significantly strengthen Teleport's cargo network and address the diversifying market demand in Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region.
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 fulfil both small-scale items of e-commerce and a bigger scale of volumetric cargo.
Meanwhile, Teleport head of commercial cargo Francis Anthony said these freighters create an added availability of skidded cargo capacity for key markets like China, allowing the company to load pre-packed, larger cargo securely.
Anthony said these three freighters would be seamlessly positioned across AirAsia's key markets like Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia through the exclusive AirAsia network.
"This allows Teleport the agility to take advantage of each hub-country's unique geographical strengths and air traffic rights and cater to every possible dimension of regional demand.
"Coupled with our extensive network of narrow and wide-body passenger planes in the region, our service offering will put us in a unique position to better serve more segments in the market," he added.
Teleport currently has the largest cargo network with the widest destination coverage in Southeast Asia, encompassing over 160 cities and accessing 252 wide-body and narrow-body aircraft.