The Higher Bay Home is rising as a extreme nexus for innovation. As swap flows between China and the remainder of the arena proceed to rise, multimodal solutions are gaining traction to meet the rising save a question to for sooner, extra surroundings friendly cargo transport, with the Hong Kong-Dongguan Sea-to-Air hub designed as a foremost link to streamline operations and repair markets.
This marks a serious shift in how goods are moved between southern China’s manufacturing heartlands and world markets, offering firms a seamless and stable switch route, reshaping the competitive panorama.
“The improvement of the Hong Kong-Dongguan sea-to-air cargo plan and intermodal activities, akin to unhealthy-border trucking, are intended now not simply to take care of e-commerce, but to expand the overall interconnectivity of Hong Kong with the remainder of the Higher Bay Home,” Tom Owen, Cathay’s Director Cargo, acknowledged.
“Within the export model, shipments had been screened for security, constructed up and accredited as cargo for flights on the Hong Kong World Airport (HKIA) Logistics Park in Dongguan, forward of being loaded on to ships and sailed to a secured dwelling at HKIA with out the need for shipments to be broken down.
“Now, within the import model, shipments can additionally be taken on their pallets or of their Unit Load Devices (ULDs) order from airside at Hong Kong World Airport to the Cathay Cargo Terminal in Dongguan by boat.
“The GBA is a with out warning increasing user market, and we’re going to save a question to excessive-quality perishables to attract end unbiased correct thing about this seamless carrier for imports in future. The bonded switch could perchance well preserve some distance off from attainable land border delays and present larger flexibility via route planning and skill utilisation, offering our customers with a stable and surroundings friendly different option for imports into the GBA.”
Rising sectors
e-commerce has been a intellectual field in post-covid – save a question to devoted saved building, and by the stop of 2023 it became carried out with a stable command. Provided that a mammoth amount of this e-commerce volume is sourced from the southern piece of the Chinese language Mainland, Hong Kong and Cathay Cargo’s strategic dilemma had been invaluable in serving this booming sector.
“e-commerce has been the story of 2024, and while there could be tension on the legislation of e-commerce, we’re confident with save a question to forecast. There are larger consultants than us on the charm of e-commerce, but label, tempo to market and opulent are key components.
“Whereas e-commerce tonnage will proceed to rise, we additionally foresee an amplify in tonnage of excessive-tech and electronic goods from the Chinese language Mainland, Southeast Asia and India.
“Online retail development is forecast to vastly outstrip faded retail, especially across the Americas. New fabricate from South The US into Hong Kong and the Chinese language Mainland is a good development dwelling.”
Centered capability
Cathay now has larger than 100 unique-generation plane in its supply pipeline, with the right to do over 80 additional plane in future. With orders covering narrowbody, regional widebody, prolonged-haul widebody, and mammoth freighter plane, these investments promise to modernise and expand Cathay’s rapid, taking it to the following level.
Cathay Cargo Terminal opened in leisurely 2022 HKIA’s greatest devoted Pharma Going by Centre, a actually temperature-managed dwelling of over 1,250 sq m devoted to the going by of pharmaceutical products. The flexibility components valid-time temperature monitoring, temperature-managed truck dock shelter for airtight sealing and a few charging aspects for cool containers.
“With the recovery of passenger flights, now we had been able to catch and save unique swap with our Cathay New special solution from all across the arena,” Owen highlighted.
“Lustrous that customers continuously seek larger administration over extreme preserve a watch on aspects, now we have additionally begun to make spend of cool dollies on chosen perishable commodities at our Hong Kong hub to present protection to extremely subtle shipments from the outrageous tarmac surroundings.
“Plus, Cathay Cargo offers next-generation Ultra Tune carrier as a price-added design to predominantly temperature-managed shipments, which offers enhanced records visibility for every customers and Cathay crew all over the cargo dash the utilization of Bluetooth skills. With end to-valid-time records, now not only can customers preserve song of shipping surroundings stipulations and locations, Cathay Cargo’s operational teams can additionally personal forward of cargo statuses and present 24/7 responses to any buyer queries via are living-chat.
“No longer too prolonged within the past, we’ve executed the IATA recertification audits for CEIV New on top of getting been certified for CEIV Pharma since 2017 and CEIV Dwell Animals since 2021, and we were the arena’s first airline to be certified for CEIV New assist in 2019. We executed the overall dilemma of IATA certification once we obtained CEIV Lithium Batteries in 2023. Customers are able to recognise and differentiate our standards and we’re going to proceed to uphold them.”
Strategic position
Hong Kong retained its field as the arena’s busiest air cargo hub in 2023, going by 4.3 million tonnes of cargo, which accounted for about 47 p.c, or about HK$4,160 billion, of the total price of Hong Kong’s exterior swap, with Cathay Cargo being the greatest contributor at 1.4 million tonnes.
A key ingredient in this success is Hong Kong’s strategic dilemma, reaching half of the arena’s inhabitants interior a five-hour flight, and is perfectly located to lift freight from the arena’s greatest producing regions – the Chinese language Mainland, South East Asia, India and Bangladesh, into the arena’s greatest-ingesting regions – the Americas and Europe.
“Cathay Cargo is devoted to upholding and strengthening Hong Kong’s premier dilemma. Internal 2025, we’re going to hover to 100 destinations worldwide from our Hong Kong hub and utilise cargo dwelling on our Community’s larger than 230 plane, at the side of the particular all-cargo carrier Air Hong Kong,” Owen outlined.
“Notably, Cathay Cargo and Cathay Cargo Terminal were the first carrier and the first cargo terminal operator respectively to construct up cargo shipments within the HKIA Logistics Park in Dongguan, transporting flight-ready security-screened and palletised air cargo shipments effectively.
“The Three-Runway System at Hong Kong World Airport is made up our minds to be fully operational by the stop of 2024, and it’ll present skill to meet the long run air traffic save a question to of 10 million tonnes of cargo forecast for 2035. We personal up for the fascinating opportunities, and now we have deep self belief within the prolonged-term future of the Hong Kong air- cargo logistics hub.”
