Opportunities ready for exploiting

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Using Sri Lanka as a transit hub for cargo into India is an opportunity to be exploited, Fits Aviation believes.

The company says using Sri Lanka in this way capitalising on e-commerce movements requiring rapid delivery is particularly important, but this opportunity has yet to be completely exploited.

Sri Lanka also has capacity issues, Fits Aviation explains: “There is enough capacity to uplift general cargo and perishables. However there is a shortage of dedicated freighters for the movement of DGR and outsized cargo, livestock in particular.”

FitsAir mainly operates scheduled freighter flights using an MD82, but is also into cargo network management with a dedicated interline team and SPA’s with over 30 airlines.

It has block space agreements with carriers into destinations such as Bagram and across India originating from the UAE.

The airline says: “We operate schedule/ non-scheduled freighters into Bangalore, Delhi, Mumbai, Karachi, Dhaka, Chittagong etc. Moreover, we manage the capacity of our own freighter into Male twice a week.”

Most of its flights are charters on a scheduled basis though says ad-hoc charters have not been as strong.

Fits Aviation says: “However there are multiples charters that do take place into Europe and North America with aircraft of larger capacity.”

It says: “Our strongest sectors are regional into Bangalore and Male, a lot of connecting and network traffic in generated on these routes. The MD-82 undertakes feeder flights for cargo from the Far East.”

Capacity is growing across Sri Lanka with passenger flights offering cargo space.

Garments travel to North America using Emirates and Qatar Airways flights with Cathay Pacific, Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines have dedicated freighter services to Colombo.

Fits Aviation comments: “The biggest challenge would be to disciplined on capacity, currently we see a trend of shrinking yields.”