One small carrier that is seeing significant cargo growth is Air Seychelles, based in the Seychelles archipelago, about 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) off the east coast of Africa.
“Tonnage for our Q1 period rose 126.8 percent to 1,602 tonnes, driven by strong demand from Paris, Hong Kong and Johannesburg, enhancements to Air Seychelles’ on-ground cargo handling capability in Mahé, and the launch of Seychelles domestic cargo services,” Sam Okpro, head of cargo, says. “We believe the economies of our online destinations will continue to remain strong for the rest of the year, lending to further growth in cargo.”
Okrpo says cargo is a vital part of the company’s business strategy, representing 14 percent of the airline’s overall revenues.
“We are also responsible for providing cargo ground handling services to all airlines operating to the Seychelles and we are the sole FedEx representative in the Seychelles. We act as their global service participant.”
Most of the products that Air Seychelles hauls are intended for the tourism industry, particularly hotels. This includes a broad range of goods such as fruits and vegetables and other perishables, automobile and electrical spare parts, computer equipment, pharmaceuticals, building materials and garments.
“Our perishable movements correlate strongly with the number of hotels in Seychelles, and as more hotels open, we expect a corresponding increase in this type of movement,” Okpro says. “In addition, we expect to see more perishable, spare parts and equipment growth as more supermarkets and hardware stores come online.”
Okpro says that since Seychelles is an import-driven economy, the network of Etihad, which has a 40 percent stake in Air Seychelles, plays a major role in getting shipments to the Seychelles from around the globe. This is in addition to Air Seychelle’s routes.
Most of the inbound cargo originates from South Africa, France, the United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Thailand and Italy.
Air Seychelles recently launched a domestic cargo service.
“Historically, the domestic cargo service was offered from our domestic passenger counter,” Okpro says. “However, last year we moved cargo acceptance and retrieval away from the domestic passenger terminal to a new cargo terminal, offering better rates and improved services for our customers. We also implemented a weekly domestic freighter service to Praslin, designed to provide a convenient connection to one of our flights from Johannesburg. It was designed to work for many of our key customers in the hotel business, providing them with high quality fresh meat, fruits and vegetables at the beginning of every week.”
Air Seychelles operates two Airbus A330-200s on its international routes. For its domestic services, it operates seven short takeoff and landing aircraft, a mixture of DHC 300 and 400 Twin Otters and one Shorts 360-300 freighter. An Airbus A320 will be added to the fleet in December.
Okpro says Air Seychelles’ cargo challenges are largely related to world and local economic trends. There’s also the universal challenge of industry overcapacity.
“It is a challenge to maintain budgeted load factors and yields at desired levels when there is excess capacity,” Okpro says. “Seychelles being a tourist destination, our imports are also closely tied to visitor arrivals. Hence the higher the average hotel occupancy, the more supplies hotel operators will order, with a certain fraction coming in by air on Air Seychelles.”