KOCHI: As Kerala celebrates Vishu on Wednesday, exporters from the state are ruing another season of lost opportunity. The open-air policy that disallowed cargo flights by foreign airlines in airports in Kerala left vegetable and fruit exporters to the Gulf countries in peril, thanks to the sky-high rates charged for the cargo by local carriers. Vishu and Onam are peak seasons for exports of vegetables, plantain leaves and fruits from the state to West Asia, where a large number of non-resident Keralites reside.
The policy, which came into effect last year, limited non-scheduled and ad hoc cargo flights by foreign carriers to Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Mumbai airports. With no competition from international carriers, domestic carriers hiked the rate of cargo from `90-100/kg to `300-350/kg last November-December, before reducing it to `230/250/kg now.
“At this cost, our exporters can’t compete with fruits and vegetables from Sri Lanka, Philippines and Thailand in the Gulf markets,” said Munshid Ali, head of Export Grievance Cell of Calicut Chamber of Commerce and Industry. ACK Nair, airport director, Cochin International Airport Ltd (CIAL), said airports in Kerala have also lost valuable foreign exchange earnings as cargo volumes plummeted. The average perishable cargo handled by the airport dropped from 116 tonnes to 66.3 tonnes in 2020, before slightly improving to 83.7 tonnes this year.
Earlier, carriers such as Qatar Airways, Emirates, Etihad Airways, Saudi Airlines and FlyDubai used to operate from Kerala.
“The problem arose when the Centre prevented them from carrying veggies from Kerala, to support local carriers under open-air policy,” said a civil aviation expert.
“Even with the baggage of the plane full of passengers, these aircraft can carry close to 30 to 35 tonnes of cargo. But in Covid season, they were not carrying passengers but had been using the slots to Trivandrum and Kochi as cargo-only flights, carrying close to 60 to 75 tonnes of cargo,” he said.
Suddenly, when these flights were disallowed, local carriers smelled a chance to make quick bucks and hiked the rates.Manoj Ravindranath of Krishna Trader, a Thiruvananthapuram-based exporter to the Gulf and Europe, said volume of exports has come down due to the unfriendly business environment triggered by the policy.
“A small player like me exported 3-4 tonnes daily. Now, I hardly export 1 tonne a week,” he said. “Many of our export association members have quit. It’s not possible to export perishable goods from Kerala under this scenario,” he said.
Abdul Rahiman of Kozhikode-based Marvel Exports, said some exporters have shifted their consignments to Bengaluru, Chennai and Hyderabad to get better cargo rates. “The national carriers are charging Rs 120/kg now to Muscat and Riyadh. Earlier, in wide-bodied aircrafts, the rate was Rs 35-40/kg,” he said.The situation is worse for Sadasivan Rajan of Rajeeb Exporters, Thiruvananthapuram. Before Covid-19, he used to export 3-4 tonnes of vegetables and fruits to five countries daily.
“Now, due to high costs and lack of flights, I export only to Bahrain, that too just four days a week. The quantity varies from 750kg to 900kg,” he said.