Chennai air cargo export terminal shut, agents suffer

CHENNAI : The Chennai export cargo terminal (ACCMAA) gate was forced to shut by the CTO due to cargo overflow at the export shed, says Dinesh Krishnan, Regional Chairman, Southern Region at ACAAI adding, “leading to trucks waiting to offload export cargo spilling over to the NH,  customs clearance & handing time taking over 24 to 48 hrs, booked cargo missed flights leading to a flash strike by frustrated CHA employees. The terminal has 2 government CTO for the past few decades , AAICLAS ( the landlord / custodian ) having 80% of the terminal space and AIASL ( the tenant / earlier ground handing & custodian ) leaser for the 20% of the space , but handing over 50% of the export tonnage . The root cause of the current crises and decline of ACCMAA can be traced to inexperience of both these CTO to administer , invest and deliver quality air cargo logistics ( CTO operations ) demanded by the EXIM trade.

A meeting was held again yesterday at the AIASL between the stakeholders and the CTO to review the issue , subsequently a debriefing with AAICLAS management was done too to see what can be done to improve the current situation . The crux of the matter is that , this is a landlord ( AAICALS ) and tenant ( AIASL ) dispute , each having a list of long term commercial & operation grievances each other .
Chennai air cargo terminal ( ACCMAA ) once the gateway of air cargo from South has seen its market share and fortunes dwindle drastically in the past 15 years .This is despite the fact that Tamilnadu is the manufacturing powerhouse for domestic / global companies and produces over 70 % of south India air cargo in tonnage .

While these 2 government CTO, fight out in ACCMAA , the air cargo stakeholder and the EXIM trade community in Chennai can only suffer in silence , being held HOSTAGE to the mismanagement , underutilisation and wastage of this national asset , said Dinesh Krishnan , Chairman – Southern Region .The Air cargo Agents association of India .