The resumption of AirAsia’s flights into China marks the return of belly cargo space in China for Teleport, the logistics venture of Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group). With AirAsia being the largest foreign carrier operating in China by capacity today, this means Teleport brings with it one of the largest cargo networks between China and Asean, with network reach connecting beyond into the wider Asia Pacific region – China, Australia/NZ, India, Japan and Korea.
“We are excited with China’s reopening as we can look forward to supporting growth in trade and cross-border e-commerce movement regionally. The full recovery of AirAsia’s fleet in China will realise Teleport’s extensive network advantage for the first time since the pandemic,” Pete Chareonwongsak, Chief Executive Office of Teleport said.
Read more: Teleport adds 12 locations to cargo network
Pete adds, “Our goal is to “Teleport it” across Asean faster and more affordably than anyone else. With a team of 700 in Malaysia, China, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, India and Singapore, we are equipped to become the preferred player for the fastest and most efficient air logistics solutions across Asean. Today we help our customers move everything from general, large volume cargo such as machinery to small parcels for ecommerce marketplaces. China reopening is important in helping us achieve our ambition towards ASEAN leadership in terms of market share in 2023. ”
Teleport was established in 2018 by consolidating belly capacity of all AirAsia airlines under a single comprehensive network. Today, Teleport is an air logistics solutions provider, building its leadership in the Asean market with an extensive combined air logistics capacity network, comprising full freighters and passenger belly capacity of 205 wide- and narrow-body AirAsia aircrafts. Key customer segments served today include global freight forwarders; and e-commerce marketplaces and businesses looking to easily move their cargo faster and more affordably across Asean and Asia Pacific.
Read more: Teleport adds 12 locations to cargo network
According to Celia Lao, Teleport Country Head for China, Hong Kong & Macau: “Our extensive network coverage across Asean and APAC gives us the advantage with reliability, speed and frequency – the combination of these capabilities provides flexibility for our customers here, which is greatly favoured to help them synchronise their logistics value chain according to their requirements.”
“During pre-pandemic times, in 2019, Teleport moved 1.24 million tonnes of cargo out of China through AirAsia’s belly space. Now with the combined freighter and belly space network capacity, we anticipate our growth in this market to double – as we are now able to serve more customers with a variety of cross border cargo needs. The top four cargo destinations for our customers are Malaysia, Thailand, India and Australia,” she says.
Teleport is expecting the arrival of the first of its three A321 Freighters in 2023 to strengthen its freighter capacity into its own fleet, in addition to the added capacity from third-party airlines. A dedicated freighter is also expected to be assigned for the China – Kuala Lumpur sector in 2023. This extends Teleport’s ability to carry additional categories of cargo – from specialised cargo, palletised cargo, as well as various dangerous cargo that are restricted on a passenger plane belly.
A total of 18 cargo routes into China are expected to resume in March, with plans to increase to 40 routes by the third quarter this year from Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines. Flight frequency in these sectors are expected to normalise to pre-pandemic, with over 350 weekly flights by Q4 2023.
