Mumbai, 2ndDecember 2022: Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) launched it’s Mumbai Chapter under the chairmanship of Mr. Manoj Singh, Senior Vice President & Head of Cargo, Mumbai International Airport Limited (MIAL) on 1st December 2022 at Pharma Excellence Centre Auditorium, Export Cold Zone, Air Cargo Terminal, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. The event was inaugurated by Mr. Yashpal Sharma – ACFI President and Managing Director, Skyways Group.

The occasion witnessed participation from 100 plus delegates from across Air Cargo & Aviation industry, several ACFI Governing Board Members and senior leaders from various trade associations including BCAS, ACAAI, BCBA, FFFAI and BAR India etc.

The Mumbai Chapter is all set to achieve success under the chairmanship of Mr. Manoj Singh for the term 2022-2023. Mr. Singh has spent over 3 decades within the Airport & Aviation sector. The ACFI Governing Board Members are confident that he will add great value to the forum through his out of the box ideas and customer-centric philosophy during the current term.

Mumbai Chapter Board for 2022-24 includes some well-known names of the industry:

  • Manoj Singh, ‘Chairman – ACFI Mumbai Chapter Board’,‘Senior Vice President & Head of Cargo – MIAL’
  • Chaitaly Mehta,‘Vice Chairperson – ACFI Mumbai Chapter Board’,‘Director – EKF Global Logistics Pvt Ltd’
  • Rajesh Menon, Regional Head of Cargo – South Asia, Middle East and Africa, Cathay Pacific Airways
  • Aniruddha Daga, Owner, Daga Connect
  • Rajiv Hariramani, Director, Air Freight – Skyways Group
  • Mihir Bhadkamkar, Director,ATC Global Logistics
  • Harish Shetty, CFO – Cargo Service Center India Pvt Ltd
  • Ravi Kumar Tummalapalli, Managing Director,VA-Q-TEC
  • Vineet Malhotra, Co-Founder and Director, Kale Logistics Solutions Private Limited

The Mumbai Committee, right from it’s inception will pursue all important trade issues in the region related to process simplification, knowledge & research, policy advocacy, upskilling the people by conducting trainings, events and workshops etc. The core objective of Mumbai Chapter will be to align itself with the ACFI Head Office and achieve the common goals of steering the growth of Air Cargo sector along with the development of Indian economy.

The newly elected Chairman Mr. Manoj Singhcommented, ”As the Chairman of Mumbai Chapter, I will continue to collaborate with each of our Task Force Pillars within ACFI for efficiently carrying out work in each area with the requisite support from our ACFI President and the esteemed members of ACFI. My ambition is to integrate ACFI Mumbai Chapter with key stakeholders of Air Cargo and Supply Chain community within Mumbai. Air Freight logistics is a crucial means to move cargo and we are witnessing rapid transition in this field through evolving technology, regulations, processes and business dynamics.’’

‘’Mumbai Chapter is geared up to align itself to MoCA’s target of 10 MMT by 2030-31 but it requires collective efforts from all of us to enhance process improvements, liaise with multiple stakeholders as well as process owners, including Participating Government Agencies at Airports, regulators, shippers, freighters, airlines etc. to execute our goals. ACFI is working towards building a world-class Air Cargo ecosystem in India that is at par with the best practices of the Air Cargo ecosystems across globe. I firmly believe that Indian Air Cargo framework should be admired for its scale, speedy delivery and efficiency by most advanced economies of the world. The entire air cargo fraternity is working together as one team to establish an eco-system that will be admired and benchmarkedwith, very soon,” said Mr. Yashpal Sharma – ACFI President.


About Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj InternationalAirport has been leading the industry in terms of digitization and e-freight penetration from the last 10 years. The airport was the first to introduce “Air Cargo Community Portal” & “Air Cargo Mobile Application” and was the first to receive e-freight “Proof of Concept” from IATA. The airport has successfully eliminated paper transactions to more than 90% and is moving towards complete digitization of Air Cargo processing in coordination with the regulators.

The airport has been instrumental in reducing the free period of EXIM operations in coordination with Ministry of Civil Aviation as well as the stakeholders and created a benchmark in processing Air Cargo at lowest dwell time. The airport has added around 1 million metric tons of cargo handling capacity in the last decade by creating state of the art facilities like “Pharma Excellence Centre,” “Export Agro Terminal,”“Export Heavy and Bonded Terminal,”“Import Cold Zone” and “Domestic Common User Terminal” to name a few. The airport has initiated working on few big-ticket projects which are under design finalization that will add further cargo handling capacity. The airport has great potential to become one of the largest air cargo hubs in India with close proximity of seaports, upcoming Navi Mumbai Greenfield International Airport, immense transshipment cargo handling capacity and future multimodal connectivity. The airport has received many accolades and certifications for excellence in Cargo processing and digital initiatives viz “Best Cargo Airport” for last consecutive 5 years, IATA CEIV certification, GDP Certification, AEO Certification, e-freight compliance and TAPA certification etc.

About Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI)

Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) was established on 14th September 2012 with a powerful and forward-looking vision. “The Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) envisages to build world class environmental friendly air logistics industry by innovation, allied action with credibility and providing business facilitation to boost the Indian economy.”

Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) was established on 14th September 2012 with a powerful and forward-looking vision. “The Air Cargo Forum India (ACFI) envisages to build world class environmental friendly air logistics industry by innovation, allied action with credibility and providing business facilitation to boost the Indian economy.”

All stakeholders work in complete alignment with various Government agencies and Ministries.  ACFI is progressing well on its path to develop India’s major airports as cargo gateway airports and promote them as major international transit cargo hubs.

ACFI has been working very closely with the Ministry of Civil Aviation (MoCA) on its vision to achieve the goal of taking Indian air space to 10 million MT by 2030-31 from the current 3.1 million MT. It’s endeavour is to facilitate trade in air mode of transport and ensure ease of doing business in the processing of EXIM trade through simplified air cargo processing. It also aims is to bring best industry practices to the Indian air cargo landscape.

For more information kindly contact:

ACFI Secretariat

Mr. D.R. Juyal – +91 – 9818417788

Mr. Brijesh Kumar – +91- 9650214011