As China's most important air cargo hub port, Shanghai has experienced a "static" state for more than two months, which has also had a great impact on all aspects of production and life. The air cargo business of material flow has also gradually entered a period of rapid recovery from the end of May.

In the early morning of June 7, flight MU7282 "Ho Chi Minh City-Pudong", carrying the resumption of production and production parts such as electronic components urgently needed by enterprises, arrived in Shanghai. The previous day, China Eastern Airlines Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Eastern Airlines Group"), the largest base airline in Shanghai, was responsible for China Eastern Airlines Logistics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Eastern Airlines Logistics (22.000, -0.44, -1.96%)"). The operated MU7729 "Pudong-Osaka" passenger-to-cargo flight carries products exported to Japan from Shanghai and the surrounding Yangtze River Delta region, and departs from Pudong Airport.

China Eastern's cargo volume soars

Since late March, due to changes in the epidemic prevention and control situation, Shanghai's two major airports, which have always been China's largest air passenger and cargo inbound and outbound ports, have suffered a sudden decline in production capacity. In addition to passenger operations, which have come to a complete standstill, cargo operations at two key air cargo hubs with the highest annual cargo throughput of more than four million tonnes have also been affected.

According to a person from the Shanghai office of an air cargo company, in an interview with a reporter from China Times, "the flow of cargo flights has not been interrupted, but the follow-up work from warehousing, transshipment distribution and even terminal distribution has been affected to varying degrees. impact, and therefore a drop in efficiency, which also led us to divert some of the goods that were originally going through Shanghai to other places to minimize this impact.”

According to the April transportation production briefing released by Shanghai Airport (48.630, 0.03, 0.06%), the current futures mail throughput was 111,600 tons, a year-on-year decrease of 70.04%; the aircraft took off and landed 3,520 sorties, a year-on-year decrease of 90.67%.

As Shanghai gradually resumed normal production and living order from the end of May, the volume of cargo flights also began to rapidly rebound to a normal state. According to the data released by Shanghai Airport Frontier Inspection in early June, from June 3rd to 5th, there were about 600 inbound and outbound cargo and mail flights at Shanghai Pudong International Airport. close to normal levels.

According to China Eastern Airlines, as Shanghai enters a stage of comprehensive recovery, China Eastern Airlines Logistics is actively accelerating the resumption of work and production of all-cargo aircraft and "passenger-to-cargo" flights, helping to actively resume and restart all walks of life. As of June 2, the single-day cargo and mail handling volume of China Eastern Airlines has reached 4,779 tons, which has recovered to 82% of the average daily cargo volume in March before Shanghai's closure and control. The previous 80% level.

Focusing on the logistics demand that has continued to grow since June and with the resumption of work and production, in addition to flying its all-cargo flights, China Eastern Logistics also continues to make good use of China Eastern's passenger aircraft fleet capacity and implements "passenger-to-cargo" unconventional passenger transport. The cargo, mail, and passenger-to-cargo business maintained a rapid recovery. Statistics show that from June 1st to June 5th, China Eastern Airlines has carried out a total of 232 passenger-to-cargo flights, transporting a total of 4,215 tons of cargo, an increase of 383.3% and 390.1% respectively over the same period last month.

China Eastern Logistics also continued to resume work and production in the ground business, and at the same time helped its all-cargo flights, "passenger-to-cargo" flights, China Eastern's passenger aircraft belly cargo and other customer airlines to ensure smooth travel. From June 1st to 5th, China Eastern Airlines Logistics guaranteed 707 ground operations for cargo flights of various airlines at Shanghai's two major airports in Pudong and Hongqiao, involving a total of 21,745 tons of cargo and mail, an increase of 154.3% and 154.3% over the same period last month respectively. 102.5%.

Guarantee the resumption of work and production

According to Shanghai Airport's statement when interacting with investors on June 1: Pudong Airport has a hinterland market with strong demand, a complete domestic and foreign airline network, a first-class operation support environment, an experienced workforce, and a strong base airline. . It is believed that once the epidemic is effectively controlled, the business volume of this field will recover quickly. Pudong Airport has been waiting for the day, and has made various preparations for the resumption of operation.

In fact, with the cooperation of local air transport and logistics companies, related work has been gradually launched as early as May. According to data released by Shanghai Airport, from May 1st to 12th, Pudong Airport guaranteed an average of 118 cargo flights per day, with an average daily cargo volume of more than 5,300 tons, an increase of 37.02% and 64.65% respectively over the same period in April. On May 12, there were 144 take-offs and landings of cargo classes and 6,212 tons of cargo and mail, all of which rose to new highs since April.

According to Shanghai Airport, since May, Shanghai Airport Group has coordinated the promotion of epidemic prevention and control and safe production operations, strictly implemented epidemic prevention and control requirements, improved the operation coordination mechanism, and opened up the blocking points of the aviation logistics chain. With the support of other departments and joint inspection units such as customs and border inspection, it will work closely with the upstream and downstream enterprises of air cargo to ensure the normal operation of the core functions of the Shanghai International Shipping Center and the stability and smoothness of the global industrial chain and supply chain.

At present, the number of closed operators in the cargo area of Pudong Airport has increased to more than 8,200. The guarantee units of the cargo shift operation chain such as ground service, maintenance, freight station, and freight forwarding have further enriched the guarantee force. Compared with the beginning of April, a net increase of 800 returning operators many people. At present, 48 airlines operate cargo flights, and the number of cargo flights has been restored to 53, an increase of 7 and 9 respectively compared with mid-April, fully ensuring the connection between Pudong Airport and core markets such as Europe, America, and Asia-Pacific.

Shanghai Airport has also opened up a "green channel" service mechanism and adopted "one enterprise, one policy", giving priority to material transportation guarantees for key enterprises such as integrated circuits, biomedicine, and auto parts, and coordinating the airline's capacity arrangements and ground service guarantees. .

According to the introduction of the international express giant FedEx, since the epidemic was closed and controlled, FedEx's international express and freight center at Pudong International Airport has remained in operation during the epidemic.

According to FedEx, in the face of the challenges of insufficient manpower and limited transportation capacity, FedEx actively applied for the "Temporary Pass for Shanghai Epidemic Prevention and Protection", and at the same time built a self-pickup appointment online registration platform, and the sales team and customer service team helped customers in need. Make an appointment to pick up the goods on the platform in advance, and the operation team will efficiently coordinate the arrangement of warehouse resources according to the appointment list, so as to meet the daily self-pickup needs of many customers to the greatest extent and accelerate the flow of goods. At the same time, a "dedicated channel for urgently needed materials for the epidemic" was established to give priority to meeting the transportation needs of urgent shipments such as ambulance chips and power production accessories to ensure epidemic prevention and people's livelihood.

With the strong support of the local business, airport, customs, and epidemic prevention departments, since March 28, the FedEx Shanghai International Express and Cargo Center has launched an emergency deployment. Hundreds of employees are stationed at Pudong Airport to carry out closed operations in various logistics links. , to ensure the normal development of export international express business. Since April 25, FedEx has resumed receiving imported international express shipments to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, further promoting the recovery and development of global trade.

On June 2, flight CZ431 from Shanghai Pudong to Chicago took off with a full load of 94 tons of cargo. This is the fourth freighter route resumed by China Southern Airlines (6.300, -0.06, -0.94%) in Shanghai. International routes from Shanghai Pudong fully resumed. Since China Southern Airlines' cargo planes resumed operation in Shanghai on May 4, more than 100 freighter flights have been carried out, carrying over 7,200 tons of cargo.

According to the latest statistics from the air traffic control department released by the aviation data analysis agency Feichangzhun, during the Dragon Boat Festival holiday, the two airports in Shanghai are recovering at a relatively fast speed. up 118% and 86%, respectively.

As the largest and most important air cargo hub in China, and also an important supply chain node supporting the manufacturing industry in the Yangtze River Delta region, the recovery of air logistics in Shanghai is of great significance to the recovery of related industries in Shanghai and surrounding areas, especially for industries such as electronics, In industries such as machining and manufacturing, automobiles, and their supply chains are highly dependent on air freight, the ability to quickly restore normal production capacity is also critical to whether related industries can truly return to normal production rhythms.