Afcom Holdings is an international cargo airline built on a single, focused idea - to be India’s first standalone freighter-only carrier, moving goods airport-to-airport without the complexity of passenger flights. Founded in 2013 by a pilot with decades of cargo-airline experience and launched commercially in 2021, the company has grown from a quasi-charter operator into a scheduled and charter freighter business connecting India to ASEAN and beyond. The recurring approach is simple: own or dry-lease a small fleet of converted Boeing 737 freighters, sell space through global sales agents to the world’s largest freight forwarders, and keep aircraft flying at utilisation levels that rival the industry’s best - a formula that turns a mid-mile cargo carrier into a high-velocity logistics link.
Business segments
A single engine - international airport-to-airport cargo carriage - run through two complementary service types, scheduled flights and pure charters, both using the same fleet and the same sales backbone.
1. Air cargo transportation: the mid-mile link between Indian and ASEAN supply chains
The company moves 22-tonne loads of anything from fresh produce to hazardous chemicals on its own freighters, selling space to the world’s biggest logistics firms and getting paid per kilo - a pure-play cargo airline with no passenger business to distract it.
- Two ways to book the same aircraft - scheduled flights run on fixed routes and timetables, while pure charters let a single customer hire the entire plane; in the most recent quarter, charters made up 415 of 602 trips, showing how the fleet flexes between predictable revenue and on-demand premium work.
- Dry-lease, not wet-lease - the company has shifted from providing aircraft with crew and insurance (wet-lease) to leasing them under longer-term dry-lease arrangements where the customer takes more responsibility, a move that generated INR160.49 crores in a single quarter and changed the shape of the revenue model.
- Sold through agents, bought by forwarders - a global sales agent (the TT Group) handles marketing and last-mile connectivity, while the end customers are freight-forwarding giants like DHL, DB Schenker, and Kuehne + Nagel, who consolidate cargo from hundreds of shippers and book space on AFCOM’s flights.
- Eight product lines for any cargo type - the company brands its capacity into specialised offerings: General Cargo, Flying Fresh for perishables, Flying Pharma for temperature-sensitive medicines, Flying Priority, Fly Courier, Project Cargo, Dangerous Goods, and High-Value Cargo, so a pharmaceutical shipment and a consignment of mobile phones travel under different service promises on the same aircraft.
- Fuel costs passed straight through - a fuel surcharge mechanism means 100% of any increase in aviation fuel cost is billed to the end customer, insulating the company from the single largest variable expense in the airline business.
2. Interline and partnership network: a virtual global reach beyond the fleet
By signing interline agreements with passenger and cargo airlines, AFCOM extends its network to destinations its own three aircraft never touch - turning a regional freighter operator into a worldwide cargo mover without buying more planes.
- Other airlines carry the cargo onward - interline agreements with Etihad Airways, Turkish Airlines, and Flydubai allow AFCOM to accept cargo bound for destinations across the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and Asia Pacific, with the partner airline handling the connecting leg.
- A six-year pact with a Pacific nation’s carrier - the partnership with Nauru Air Corporation opens doors to code-sharing, cross-utilisation of assets, and access to transcontinental Australia and Pacific island markets, a strategic foothold built through a government-to-government-level relationship signed at Nauru’s High Commission in New Delhi.
- Ground partners complete the last mile - tie-ups with Air India SATS for cargo handling at the upcoming Noida International Airport and with TT Aviation for customs-bonded trucking in South India mean cargo collected at a factory gate can reach the aircraft and vice versa, even though AFCOM itself only flies the airport-to-airport leg.
Group structure and partners
A standalone company with no subsidiaries or joint ventures, run by a tight team of aviation specialists and plugged into the global airline settlement system through IATA membership.
- The company has no subsidiary companies, joint ventures, or associate companies - it is a single legal entity operating one business.
- Leadership sits with founder Capt. Deepak Parasuraman (Chairman and Managing Director) and Mr. Kannan Ramakrishnan (Whole-Time Director), supported by a senior team covering flight operations, engineering, cargo operations, and commercial sales.
- IATA membership and IATA Clearing House (ICH) approval, granted in 2025, give AFCOM access to a payment settlement cycle of just 15 days for receivables and the ability to extend and receive free lines of credit among over 330 member airlines and 230 suppliers - the plumbing that makes interline agreements and code-shares commercially viable.