The exponential growth of freight traffic since the pandemic

The strong demand for air freight throughout the year during the pandemic times has reinforced the importance of the air cargo industry. How do you think has this benefitted the aviation industry?

The pandemic proved the importance of the aviation industry especially during the lockdown period ensuring that the products such as food and medical supplies reaches the consumer without any delay was fully reliant on the aviation industry. We have seen a dramatic slowdown in all types of industries including passenger travel (if not totally stopped). However, in the cargo industry, we have seen a huge jump in the number of A/C operated during the pandemic and the lockdown, more and more passenger A/C were used as purely cargo A/C just to cope with market demand. It was a huge challenge for everyone with the new perspective of the cargo business, but personally, I believe that all the stakeholders of the cargo industry managed to adopt the new requirement and deliver their best services.

With the dynamics changing so rampantly, how do you see the aviation industry evolving in the near future?

The aviation industry has always been the centre of all business affairs and shortening the time frame between a manufacturer and the end user was its core objective.

With the increasing projects in the region and the way consumers’ preferences are changing in terms of shopping from the comfort of their homes, the aviation industry will be the backbone of the e-commerce business and I can see it flourishing all around the globe.

The past year has been difficult for the aviation industry. Do you think in these trying times aviation industry has been pushed towards digitalisation?

For sure, and actually more and more digitalisation is being adopted and I strongly believe that this is in fact the future of the aviation industry for many years to come.

Though the passenger side of the aviation industry has suffered during the pandemic times, the freight side has grown stronger.