Interview – FedEx eyes booming Middle East-India trade
FedEx is seeking to take advantage of the fast growth in trade between India and the Middle East with its direct flights between the two regions, a senior manager told CEP-Research in an interview.
The US integrator expanded its Middle East capacity in autumn 2005 by upgrading weekday flights from its European air hub in Paris to the Middle East hub at Dubai with an MD-11 freighter. It also started its own flights from Dubai to India in place of using commercial capacity. FedEx now has a daily eastbound and westbound service using MD-11 flights that operate from Paris via Dubai to Delhi and Mumbai, and return via Dubai to Paris.
“The MD-11 flights open up the market with large capacity,” said Brian Britnor, senior manager sales, Middle East & Africa, on the sidelines of this week’s World Mail & Express Logistics Middle East, Africa & South Asia conference in Dubai. Trade between India and Dubai, which has a large Indian business community, has more than quadrupled since 2002 to reach $10.9 billion in 2006, according to official statistics from Dubai released at the end of February.
“The Middle East is a clearly growing market. There is migration from general cargo to time-definite shipments,” Britnor explained. Declining to state any local FedEx business figures, he confirmed: “We are growing, expanding and adding new services.”
Within the Middle East, FedEx has an air feeder network provided by Dubai-based Falcon Express Cargo Airlines, which is its Global Service Participant (GSP) in several countries in the region as well. Falcon Express, also used by other integrators, flies to the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
FedEx also has a ground transport network to profit from the clear trend towards slower, less time-sensitive shipments within the region. “That’s the way the market is going,” Britnor said. A recent service improvement was the introduction of PowerPad hand-held devices for FedEx couriers to transmit real-time data for tracking and tracing purposes.
Last month FedEx upgraded the importance of the wider region by promoting Hamdi Osman to the newly-created position of Senior Vice President, Middle East, India and Africa.
