Afcom Holdings - Sky High Ambitions, Grounded in Reality?

The main promoters Mr Deepak and Mr Kannan haven’t sold any shares.
The declining percentage on screener is only because of the equity dilution which happened during QIP.
The other main share holders Mr. Jaganmohan and Mr.Thiagaraja have sold some, but this was when the stock had recovered from the 2025 bear phase, and not much of a concern imho.

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Thank you for sharing , here is the link to interview with IndiGo’s cargo head .

Where IndiGo wins is its domestic network density , it connects major hubs to many tier 2-3 cities within India , they can partner with global freight forwarders and cargo operators to handle transshipment of cargo from metro hubs to these smaller cities in point-to-point connections .

IndiGo has around 60 A350-900 on order , deliveries should start from 2027 , a A350-900 should be able to carry 15-18 tonne belly cargo on European routes from DEL after accounting for 85% PLF , the fuel and bags .These aircrafts should fly high demand routes from metro hubs in India (DEL , BOM , BLR) to Europe , USA , Australia .

These A350s will definitely provide IndiGo with good enough cargo capacity on international long-haul routes , Afcom does not fly these routes currently but they might allocate their 777s on these long-haul routes whenever they arrive , in that case it would compete straight with IndiGo.

Today Afcom flies to SE Asian and Middle Eastern routes with their 737 freighter whereas IndiGo flies their A321s and A320Neos passenger versions on these very routes, it could carry cargo in its belly but belly cargo has its own set of limitations -

  1. An A320Neo with 85% passenger load factor can carry around 1.5-2.5 tonne cargo and an A321 can carry 3.5-5tonne vs a dedicated 737 freighter which can carry 23 tonnes
  2. Loading and Unloading bulk cargo could increase the turnaround time for passenger aircraft, a low-cost carrier cannot afford this .
  3. Domestic express cargo comprises mostly of E-com packages , document , etc which are high volume and low density , an A320 belly has limited volume left to accommodate these bulk cargo after being filled with passenger bags.
  4. Belly Cargo comes last in priority list , extra contingency fuel for bad weather and diversions are prioritized first on longer routes .
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Correction - the Boeing 777-8F order does seem to be an intent for acquisition, not lease.
These are new aircrafts that are not in production yet, and the first one is expected to roll out to Qatar airways by 2028.


Screenshot 2026-09-17 at 10.08.35

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The near term plan for leasing older 777s is still in play. It’s not clear whether the new planes will supplement or replace the leased ones:

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Notes from AGM:

  • 4th Aircraft expected by October, 5th by November
  • All 5 are expected to serve a full quarter of operation by Q4FY27
  • Leased wide body aircrafts expected to be ready by June 2027 ( I think they said 2 aircrafts, but I’m not sure here )
  • The new wide body 777-8f aircrafts that Afcom intends to purchase from Boeing - whether they will replace or supplement the older leased 777s will be decided at the appropriate time on the basis of market conditions
  • MRO in JV with Nauru: Afcom has deposited the money from it’s side and is waiting for Nauru to complete procedures on their side. 8-9 months is an optimisitc timeline for this.

Looking at history it’s clear the timelines from management are just guidelines, not real deadlines.

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any solid reason given for the delay?

Any reasons given for MRO in JV with Nauru?

Nauru is the 3rd smallest country I guess and has a population of just 12000 people. They may be totally import dependent but I dont expect Nauru to be importing significant amount of goods considering their population is just 12,000 people (A big township of Noida may be housing more people than entire population of Nauru :) )

So they wudnt be having too much of flight activity, so not considerable revenues. May be this contract may give them experience & capability to bid for a bit bigger airports next year

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May be price point and less crowd to pick up and as a transfer point

Link to Article

Routes that Afcom-Nauru can fly on its 737’s -

  • Chennai (MAA) / Delhi (DEL) ⇄ Bangkok (BKK) / Singapore (SIN) ⇄ Brisbane (BNE) - Cargo can move to and from Australia using ASEAN countries as the transit hub , Afcom already has established network in ASEAN countries and similary Nauru already has established facilities to Australia
  • Chennai (MAA) ⇄ Bangkok (BKK) ⇄ Nauru (INU) ⇄ Tarawa (TRW) / Majuro (MAJ) - Island nations rely on imports to sustain life , Indian goods can flow to Pacific island nations through this very ASEAN hubs
  • India Hubs ⇄ Singapore (SIN) ⇄ Nauru (INU) ⇄ Nadi (NAN) / Suva (SUV) - Asian goods can reach Fiji hub and similarly goods from the South Pacific can be consolidated at the Fiji hub and flow back to Asia .
  • I believe the agreement also includes clause for asset sharing and dry leasing , Afcom can use aircrafts owned by Nauru ( a fleet of eight 737’s which also includes dedicated freighters) when Pacific demand faces seasonal weakness

The alliance with Nauru has nothing to do with importing goods to Nauru.
The alliance is with Nauru airlines, which flies cargo in the Australia region.
The relationship with Nauru began when Afcom leased their 3rd aircraft from Nauru airlines.
Then they decided to strengthen the relationship further - Afcom would feed into Nauru’s planes using Indonesia ( or Malaysia, don’t remember exactly) as a hub and Nauru will forward the cargo to Australia and surrounding areas.
MRO is another venture, which will help service their own aircrafts as the maintenance costs can climb as the number of aircrafts increases.
There’s also plans to setup a JV with them for flying cargo using Bangkok as a hub.

Also note that all of these are still on paper, nothing has fructified yet. Given the poor record of management in keeping their timelines, I can only imagine it would get worse when another party is involved.

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Any source which says Capt Deepak has flown 10000 hours ? I have been trying to find genuine sources but couldn’t. DRHP says he wasn’t able to show of him being a pilot through any document.

Disclosure: I use to own it in decent quantity, sold everything recently.

I have been following cargo market closely for last few months. There seems to be clear surge in movement out of India more recently

Emirates SkyCargo is upscaling its network and adding new cities - MAA, BLR, HYD. Even tho DWC-MAA remains 1X a week, it directly competes on routes like Afcom’s 3x weekly MAA–DWC corridor.

Flydubai is entering dedicated cargo space by wet leasing 3 737-800F from SolitAir (another interesting operator to keep an eye on) next month onwards, will be interesting to see where they fly into.

Indigo Cargo has simultaneously started options to Sharjah out of BLR, COK, NMI and AMD around the same time Afcom started its operations. I suspect SHJ and DWC are interline road feeder network, so they are practically chasing the exact same cargo pool.

My key takeaway for Afcom: despite all this capacity coming in. Afcom hasn’t seen any drop in frequencies over the months. If anything, there has only been a surge with extra flights added. September has been their best month so far, followed by March charter demand due to war.

The volumes are clearly there and getting absorbed. Afcom doesn’t have a demand problem at all—what they really need right now is just more capacity and extra planes to fully capitalize on it. Current DWC (3x a week) and HAN (2x a week) routes could easily double in frequency with a fleet this size. Maybe they are holding back on scaling with 3 planes because one needs to be kept as a backup.

Still, I don’t understand why they are so behind on inducting new planes, and why one of their three has been nearly grounded for half the year.

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They need back up ./ if some thing failed in two they use third one

if it were a genuine backup, it would still be rotated into the active schedule instead of sitting parked for months

It looks far more likely that the 3rd frame is grounded simply to keep the other two flying

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From the new IP released for AGM.

So, we will soon know, how far it’s true.

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