News / More freighter flights for Malaysia as e-commerce traffic builds

Record e-commerce sales have led to additional freighter services in Malaysia – and there are more on the way.

Last week, Kerry Logistics announced it had teamed up with Malaysian cargo airline My Jet Xpress to boost flights from Macau to East Malaysia and Indonesia, serving an e-commerce client.

Kerry said the service had begun in March with five flights a month, but now operates up to eight times a week with My Jet investing in two Boeing 737s – on top of its fleet of four freighters – for the route.

My Jet chairman Mohamed Yunos said: “With the strong e-commerce market growing rapidly, we acknowledge the consumer demand for greater transparency, speed, and reliability.

“We hope to see My Jet Xpress emerge as one of the main players in the air cargo industry, expanding not only in South-east Asia but also throughout Asia with a larger fleet of narrow and widebody aircraft.”

And Kerry said it would be expanding the partnership with My Jet, adding scheduled services from Kuala Lumpur and Shenzhen to destinations within South-east Asia and the Indian Subcontinent.

The forwarder added: “By offering scheduled flights and dedicated charters, as well as value-added services including cross-border trucking, warehouse storage and last-mile delivery, the new services will be able to support the rapid surge of the e-commerce market, the spike in freight demand and capacity challenges going into the peak season.”

Meanwhile, this month AirAsia logistics unit Teleport began operating its first 737-800 freighter out of Kuala Lumpur.

The company purchased the converted aircraft in June, following a fast pivot to cargo during the Covid-crisis, adding coverage from Malaysia to Bangkok, Manila and Jakarta, which it said were its customers’ key tradelanes in the region.

Pete Chareonwongsak, Teleport’s CEO, said the airline would be looking at “large orders” of new and converted freighters “if the company is successful”.

COO Adrian Loretz added that the remainder of the year “looks set to be another busy season” for online retailers, especially with the approaching holidays.

He told The Loadstar: “This peak season could see record sales growth once again, especially in the e-commerce arena. We expect that this demand will remain high for the coming years, and in combination with delayed border openings, we believe there is a structural capacity deficit in South-east Asia.

“Teleport hopes to bridge the gap in this deficit with our upcoming plans to add additional freighters into our current fleet so we can better serve the region”.

Indeed, Cainiao’s newly opened airfreight hub in Kuala Lumpur is also expected to boost the country’s cross-border e-commerce trade and freighter capacity.