LOGISTICS CLUSTERING FOR LEVERAGING INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS OPERATIONS OF AEROTROPOLIS

Abstract

Logistics and supply-chain management constitute the two cardinal and critical components for conducting aerotropolis-based global businesses. Logistics infrastructure; especially when in clusters becomes a key enabler of global trade. Speed and responsiveness have been recognized as essential elements of competitive strategy in the international businesses. Airports have always been the key nodes in global production systems offering speed, agility, and connectivity to the expected level of services by the industry. To increase the speed with which companies are able to respond to customer orders, many warehouse and distribution companies, as well as logistics companies, have located close to airports i.e. Airport cities or aerotropolis. Increasingly, now, manufacturing companies are also locating close to airports to minimize the distance between the place of manufacture and the location of transport. In this endeavour, products can move quickly off the assembly-line and onto the freighter and the vessels. The concentration of these manufacturing activities acts as a magnet to attract other supporting knowledge and service industries globally by forging widely networked connectivity of all kinds. These connected trends have led to the emergence of a new form of airport-centric commercial development in the aviation sector, called the aerotropolis. This trend has transformed “city airports” into “airport cities.” This trend also positions airports as 21st century drivers of business location, urban economic growth and global economic integration. The aerotropolises are also powerful engines of regional and local economic development, attracting aviation-linked businesses of all types that are attracted by the ability to get their products to customers around the world. Increasingly, these companies include, among others, time-sensitive manufacturing and distribution facilities, as well as hotel, entertainment, retail, convention, trade and exhibition complexes. This paper explains and illustrates the various infrastructural support systems and operational modalities used by logistics clusters in the aerotropolis for leveraging operational business efficiencies in a hyper-competitive manner.