Cainiao already charters space on flights between China and Europe, and Asia and Europe, just how big will its own-operated network get?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nIt remains unclear if the facility will handle cargo for other carriers and compete directly with existing air cargo terminals such as HACTL, Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal and AAT, or if it will operate solely for Cainiao and its partners.<\/p>\n
A bit of competition however, seems most likely. In January of this year, YTO Cargo Airlines (an affiliate of both YTO Express and Alibaba) launched flights to Hong Kong where HACTL currently serves as the carrier\u2019s handling agent for its 4x weekly services.<\/p>\n
As Cainiao adds global hubs, it can be expected that air freight capacity will be added in parallel. One option is to add capacity through its affiliate airline YTO Cargo Airlines. At present, YTO flights at HKIA are limited to regional flights that utilize a 757-200PCF.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
But hub-to-hub flights will require long-haul widebody freighters, which YTO does not currently possess or have on order. In the coming years, YTO has said it expects to add widebody freighters to accommodate cross-border e-commerce shipments.<\/p>\n
Regarding the planned facility in Hong Kong, YTO told\u00a0Cargo Facts<\/em>\u00a0that additional flights into Hong Kong are dependent on slot availability and market demand, but added that having a major presence at HKIA could only be beneficial.<\/p>\nCainiao could also choose to pursue any combination of other lift options such as BSAs, ACMI, or on the extreme \u2013 it could acquire aircraft of its own. Cainiao said it has already \u201copened an airfreight route between Hong Kong and Belgium last month.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sources have confirmed to\u00a0Cargo Facts\u00a0<\/em>that while Cainiao does not charter an entire aircraft, e-commerce logistics specialist 4PX charters one leg of Silk Way West-operated 747F flights between LGG and HKG. Cainiao is one of 4PX\u2019s customers utilizing capacity on these flights.<\/p>\n\n- Source: Cargo Facts<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hong Kong Int’l Airport Last week, Alibaba released plans to expand the network of its logistics arm, Cainiao, into Asia, Europe and the Middle East, underpinning its international e-commerce expansion effort. Yesterday, the company released its plans to drop US$1.5 billion on a logistics center project\u00a0at China\u2019s Southern-most hub, Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA). Last…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":11365,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3,2,47],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11368,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11364\/revisions\/11368"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moovafrica.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}