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BA World Cargo plans Kolkata service

Our Bureau

KOLKATA, April 30

COME Autumn, and the city will be on the British Airways World Cargo's (BAWC) map. This is for the first time the airline is planning to have a regular freighter service out of the city.

Earlier at least on two occasions, British Airways World Cargo (BAWC) operated on ad hoc basis freighter services out of the city. Thus, in 1996, the airline operated a weekly freighter for four months in September, October, November and December. In Feb ruary this year also, there was one ad hoc freighter from the city on the occasion of the Chinese New Year.

The proposed regular freighter service will be part of a big plan being finalised by BAWC with Global Supply Systems (GSS), a new British ACMI (aircraft, crew,maintenance and insurance) provider.

According to the contract signed with GSS, BAWC will acquire on wet lease two freighters from GSS which in turn will acquire them on lease from Atlas Air Inc. The leasing, it is felt, will provide the maximum operational flexibility to meet the customer requirements.

The new service is expected to come into operation from Autumn 2001 when the aircraft, both Boeing 747Fs, are placed in British register. The destinations to be covered by the freighters will include: London Stansted, Hong Kong, Frankfurt, Atlanta, Osaka , Delhi and Kolkata.

Incidentally, BAWC will be the first customer to work with GSS, it is learnt. Right now BAWC operates five freighter services out of Delhi every week as part of its Hong Kong-Delhi-London Stansted run. Each freighter being 747-400 has the payload of 110 tonnes. Reports have it that the airline proposes to introduce shortly freighter services also from Mumbai and Chennai and the route will be London-Chennai-Mumbai-London.

Meanwhile, British Airways has selected pan-Asian professional services firm, Mercatela, to work out creative strategy and design, localisation services and technology implementation for its Asia Web sites, according to informed sources.

Mercatela, it is learnt, will work closely with BA to integrate online and offline strategies to work out a unified business strategy and a consistent brand for the airline's sites throughout Asia.