First dedicated air cargo service launched

This year saw the launch by Swaziland Airlink, the only air carrier to serve the country, of the first dedicated cargo aircraft, albeit on an initially experimental basis. “We have high hopes for air cargo. Airlink is upgrading its cargo capacity on all its routes. For Swaziland a Jetstream 41, formerly a passenger plane, is now adapted to cargo,” Teddy Mavuso, CEO of Swaziland Airlink, told FTW. The service, introduced in the first week of October, may seem optimistic given the low volumes of air cargo that have historically moved to and from Swaziland. But the strategy is that once a regularly scheduled service offering unlimited capacity is available to replace the former ad hoc service, customer demand will grow. “We are trying to see if we can do a dedicated aircraft for cargo. Our marketing department is going around the (Swaziland) companies to introduce the service and determine what their air cargo needs are,” said Mavuso. Currently, air cargo is a oneway affair. Some “just in time” industrial inputs and imports are the main cargo moved. “There has been little export cargo,” said Mavuso. Which is why Swaziland Airlink is looking at sharpening its pencil and reducing its cargo tariffs by as much as 25% to attract customer demand and in the process increase the volumes of airfreight in particular out of Swaziland,” said Mavuso.