HALCON, a joint venture working group between Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) and Container Corporation of India (Concor) along with terminal operator Clarion Solutions, on Tuesday announced the commencement of air cargo services at the Ojhar airport in Nashik in Maharashtra.
The airport is owned by HAL, which has invested around Rs.70 crore in developing the infrastructure. This will now be used for export and import activities by facilitating air cargo services from Nashik. While the airport, runway and air traffic control (ATC) will be managed by HAL, the cargo complex is managed by Clarion Solutions, which is assigned terminal operator, ground handling operator and regulated agent.
Addressing a press conference here, HAL Managing Director (MIG) P. V. Deshmukh said the airport was extremely well equipped and capable of handling even the Russian AN-124 aircraft, the heaviest aircraft in the world. The airport comprises a full-fledged air cargo complex, warehousing, integrated packing centre for perishables, cold storage, screening, unitising, ground handling services for airlines, CCTV surveillance, bar-coding, labelling and customs.
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Mr. Deshmukh said the airport had modern radar, ATC, met services, airport aides, parking space and most importantly, night landing facility. Nashik being about 200 km from Mumbai, Ojhar airport initially expects about 20-25 per cent of the 40,000 tonne a month cargo handled at the Mumbai airport.
According to V. Ramnarayan, Vice-Chairman, Transworld Group, which owns Clarion Solutions and is a leading shipping and logistics conglomerate, “Cargo handled at the Mumbai airport has doubled in the last five years. Even though Nagpur is coming up as an international cargo hub and upcoming centres like Solapur airport, all have their own catchment and niche areas and all will be viable.''