(by Phil Newell) Liu Xueer of AI Financial Service
Editor | Sun Jing
Liu Qiangdong's "aviation dream" has finally come true.
Recently, a public notice issued by the civil aviation department shows thatJingDongThe cargo airline has been approved by the East China Regional Administration of Civil Aviation, which means that JD.com Inc Airlines has become the third private cargo airline after Shun Feng Airlines and Yuantong Airlines.
According to Tianyancha APP, the Jiangsu JD.com Inc cargo Aviation Co., Ltd. was established in September 2019 by Liu Qiangdong with a registered capital of 600 million yuan. It is a joint venture between Suqian JD.com Inc Zhanrui Enterprise Management Co., Ltd. and Nantong Airport Group Co., Ltd., in which the former accounts for 75% of the shares, a JD.com Inc affiliated company, and the latter 25%.
In fact, JD.com Inc has long been eyeing the air cargo market covetously. People familiar with the matter told AI that JD.com Inc wanted to buy Jinpeng Airlines (formerly Yangzijiang Airlines), an international cargo carrier owned by HNA, in 2018. "Liu Qiangdong came forward", but it didn't work out.
2018 is the right time.JD Logistics, Inc.Soon after independence, JD.com Inc significantly accelerated the layout of aviation logistics. Typically, such as the first all-cargo plane in that year, the first flight between Tianjin and Guangzhou, followed by JD Logistics, Inc. and China Southern Airlines, Air China,China Eastern Airlines LogisticsWhen we reach cooperation. It was also in this year that JD.com Inc reached an agreement with the Nantong municipal government to build Nantong Airport into a JD Logistics, Inc. global air cargo hub, laying the foundation for the layout of today's cargo airlines.
2020 is also a milestone. JD.com Inc reached an agreement with the Wuhu municipal government to build another global air cargo hub, and will also set up aviation industry clusters such as airlines and airport industrial parks, with a total investment of 95 billion yuan, more than the 20 billion yuan of the Nantong project. In August of the same year, JD Logistics, Inc. spent 3 billion yuan to acquire leapfrog express transportation, which is good at air cargo, to strengthen his own team.
Why does JD.com Inc value air cargo? Senior people in the industry told AI that although the cost of air transport is high, it is also the most time-effective. JD.com Inc has been doing charter flights before, generally cooperating with airlines and freight forwarders, but if he wants to become a real benchmarking enterprise, he must make up for this deficiency.
Yang Daqing, a special researcher of the China Society of Logistics, also analyzed that air cargo has high risk and high investment, and needs to rely on a stable supply of goods to ensure cash flow, while compared with other e-commerce platforms, JD.com Inc, who is good at being self-employed, happens to have an advantage, and advantageous categories such as 3C digital are also better matched with highly time-effective air cargo.
At present, JD.com Inc Aviation's talent team is still being built, with 10 pilots, 7 signed personnel, and 9 maintenance personnel. In the follow-up, talents will be recruited through campus recruitment and social recruitment.
Compared with land and water transport, self-built air cargo does cost money and requires higher investment in infrastructure and talent in the early stage. At present, in addition to the national team such as China Post, there are onlyShunfeng和YuantongGet involved.
At least in the short term, JD.com Inc Airlines can not catch up with Shun Feng Airlines. Shunfeng Airlines' most eye-catching Ezhou airport project is entering a critical year of preparation and is said to be aiming for the launch of school flights by the end of 2021. Ezhou Airport is located in the hinterland of central China, which is expected to change the Shunfeng route from point-to-point to axial radiation mode, further reduce costs and improve efficiency, which is one of the important "tickets" for Shunfeng to the future.
Yuantong Airlines is also making efforts. After continuously opening up international routes, in June 2020, it also focused its attention on the aviation logistics base, planning to build a global aviation logistics hub in Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, with a total investment of 12.2 billion yuan.
With the entry of JD.com Inc aviation, the dispute over "air supremacy" of express logistics enterprises may be more intense.
This article is originally produced by the account AI of Finance and Economics Weekly. Please do not reprint it through any channel or platform without permission. Violators will be prosecuted.
