News
Turkish Airlines and ZTO Express become partners
June 15th 2018
Turkish Airlines, Shanghai-based ZTO Express and Hong Kong-headquartered PAL Air this week signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a global express mail and freight forwarder joint venture (JV) to be based in Hong Kong. Read More »
The JV will specialize in door-to-door delivery services, warehouse management and order and supply chain management.
E-commerce giant Hangzhou-based Alibaba Group, is potentially involved in the JV and expects to close a deal this month to buy 10% of ZTO Express for US$1.38 billion. ZTO Express handles 28 million parcels a day.
“In 2017, ZTO's annual volume reached 6.22 billion parcels. As the largest express delivery company in the world, ZTO is an open platform built on core values of ‘Co-create and Share’.
ZTO will continue to solidify and strengthen its competitive advantage for domestic growth, and will actively explore and expand international markets, building cross-border business as an important growth engine for the future,” said ZTO chairman, Lai Mei Song.
“The cooperation between the three partners will form synergy by combining strong core competencies and integrating key resources, and will undoubtfully effect positive progress in the areas of global express delivery, warehousing, cargo freight, and aviation route development and more, and will ultimately benefit traders and consumers globally,” the ZTO boss added.
Turkish Airlines chairman of the board and the executive committee, Mehmet İlker Aycı, said the JV is expected to generate more than US$2 billion in revenues in the next five years. “The growth is expected to parallel e-commerce demand,” he said, and added the Istanbul New Airport would lift Turkish Cargo’s handling capacity by up to 4 million tons annually. The new hub airport is on schedule to open on October 29.
Turkish Cargo operates a fleet of 10 A330-200Fs, two B777Fs (plus three on order), as well as three wet-leased A310Fs and two B747-400Fs.
