Teleport to add three leased Airbus A321 freighters

Teleport is expanding its fleet with the addition of three Airbus A321 freighters leased from BBAM.

This increases the cargo-only fleet of Teleport, the logistics venture of Capital A (formerly AirAsia Group Berhad), to four freighters in total, in addition to belly capacity provided by over 200 exclusive AirAsia passenger aircraft.

Each A321F, leased from BBAM can carry up to 27 tons of cargo per flight.

The three A321Fs will be operated by AirAsia and will be delivered in stages starting in the first quarter of 2023.

The addition of the A321F’s into Teleport’s fleet allows for containerised loading in both the main deck and lower deck.

These narrowbody freighters are expected to address the diversifying market demand within Southeast Asia and the overall Asia-Pacific region.

Pete Chareonwongsak, chief executive of Teleport, said: “It is a timely and strategic move on our part to complement our exclusive AirAsia passenger belly planes with a freighter network to expand and reinforce our increased capacity for key markets like China and India into Asean.

“The combined fleet approach with multi-hub freighter and belly operations will give us a unique “many to many” network advantage to serve our customers in this region.

“E-commerce continues to be the main force propelling air cargo growth around the region and here at Teleport, especially with key growth in segments like international cross border e-commerce and express shipping.”

Francis Anthony, head of commercial cargo at Teleport, added: “The addition of these freighters creates an added availability of skidded cargo capacity for key markets like China, which will allow us to load pre-packed, larger cargo in a secure manner.

“Through the exclusive AirAsia network, which gives Teleport access to a multi-hub operating model, these three freighters will be seamlessly positioned across AirAsia’s key markets like Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines and Indonesia.

“This allows Teleport the agility to take advantage of each hub-country’s unique geographical strengths, air traffic rights and cater to every possible dimension of regional demand. Coupled with our extensive network of narrow and wide body passenger planes in the region, our service offering will put us in a unique position to better serve more segments in the market.”

Teleport began operating its first dedicated cargo aircraft last year.