Eastar Jet has begun air cargo operations on its Manado route in Indonesia.
The carrier said on the 15th that it started cargo service on the Manado-Incheon route on the 14th, using belly cargo space in the baggage holds of passenger aircraft. It is the airline's 11th cargo route, following services to Bangkok, Tokyo, Osaka, Taipei, Shanghai, Yantai, Da Nang, Hong Kong, Zhengzhou and Almaty.
The main item shipped is tuna, an Indonesian specialty product. The cargo arrives in Incheon on flights from Manado and is then transferred to Incheon-Osaka flights for delivery to Japan.
Beyond the Manado-Incheon-Osaka route, Eastar Jet is steadily expanding transshipment cargo volumes using its existing network, including the Tokyo-Incheon-Zhengzhou route for pharmaceuticals and the Tokyo-Incheon-Yantai route for industrial materials.
For destinations Eastar Jet does not serve, the airline uses interline arrangements with other carriers. Under this approach, its Taipei-Incheon route is linked with another airline's Incheon-U.S. route to carry e-commerce goods and other freight.
Eastar Jet plans to extend its cargo business to the Xiamen route in China within this year. On that route, e-commerce goods and cosmetics will be the main items carried.
"The Manado route in Indonesia has strong growth potential for the cargo business because of large export volumes of tuna and other seafood," an Eastar Jet official said. "We will continue to expand transshipment and interline cargo volumes centered on Incheon and strengthen our competitiveness."
Eastar Jet is the first South Korean airline to apply the TCM Solution to cargo transport. Developed by global air cargo company ECS Group, the system manages the entire shipping process, including market analysis, booking, tracking and quality assessment.