JD.com Enters All Cargo Air Freight Market Through Partnership with Tianjin Air Cargo

JD.com, China’s largest retailer, has partnered with Tianjin Air Cargo, a unit of HNA Group, to ship goods on a dedicated all-cargo aircraft as the e-commerce giant ramps up its logistics business.

The new service, which launches today, will fly six round trips a week and use a dedicated freight Boeing 737 aircraft branded with the JD Logistics logo. Transportation and delivery between Tianjin and Guangzhou will be faster than when JD relied on shared aircrafts and ground transportation. With more, dedicated capacity, JD will be able to continue its unparalleled service of delivering orders same- or next-day, nationwide. The aircraft will also be used for JD’s growing logistics business, which includes business-to-business transportation and individual parcel delivery throughout China.

The use of an all-cargo aircraft in air freight is more reliable than the common alternative of bellyhold capacity on civil passenger airlines because flight times can be adjusted according to industry demand, as opposed to having to comply with commercial airline schedules. JD and Tianjin Air Cargo will be looking closely at how to expand the new service, with further routes planned between Northern and Southern China.

“The addition of freight by dedicated cargo aircraft brings the strength of JD’s nationwide logistics network to even greater heights,” said Hui Wang, Head of the Express Business Unit at JD Logistics. “We look forward to expanding our relationship with Tianjin Air Cargo in the coming months and we are sure that the resulting expedited delivery speeds will be welcomed by individual consumers as well as the businesses we work with as part of our Retail as a Service strategy.”

“This new service sets a new industry milestone. The combination of Tianjin Cargo’s breadth of experience in freight and JD’s expertise in supply chain makes this partnership a force to be reckoned with,” said Yi Zhang, Chairman & President of Tianjin Air Cargo. “As China’s largest retailer, online or offline, JD’s resources across the e-commerce and logistics industry will be of great assistance to our company’s development going forward.”

The partnership is the latest move by JD to ramp up its abilities to open its technology and infrastructure to other companies and industries, part of its “Retail as a Service,” or RaaS, strategy. JD’s unrivalled guarantee of same or next day delivery for 90% of orders is a key reason why millions of consumers flock to the platform every day. JD uses a wide variety of delivery methods to get goods to customers at such a high level of convenience, including drones, freight trains, unmanned delivery vehicles and high-speed rail.