Carriers move out of Mumbai

While normal services are resuming out of Mumbai airport following the recent terrorist attacks it remains to be seen how much traffic returns to India. Even prior to the attacks some large cargo carriers were already cutting services to and from Mumbai and the rest of India.

Since the attacks, Eva Air of Taiwan has cut all of its freighter services from Mumbai as has Etihad Cargo, which has also moved out of Bangalore. China Airlines has moved out of Delhi and Cargolux has cut its Chennai service.

While the blame has been put on slowing international trade the attacks have only exacerbated the issue.

However, Emirates SkyCargo and Cathay Pacific Cargo are actually adding capacity into India ,but even that is limited with volumes growing at a slower rate than in recent years: an overall growth of 4 per cent out-bound cargo to non-US major markets, a volume drop of 20-25 per cent to the US but in-bound cargo volumes have grown by 10-15 per cent.

With demand softening it remains to be seen how much further and extensive the move out of Mumbai and India will be.