With around 25,000 islands across 11 countries, Southeast Asia poses a unique challenge for logistics.
“Doing well in this region requires recognising and understanding its unique characteristics. Southeast Asia has about 25,000 islands, so we knew air travel was the way to go to meet modern expectations for fast cross-border movements,” Jan Philipp Pöter, Chief Business Officer at Teleport, said.
Seven years ago, the company began by leveraging the belly space of AirAsia and AirAsia X, Southeast Asia’s largest low-cost airlines, creating the lowest marginal cost, and largest Southeast Asia air network overnight with access to more than 200 high-frequency passenger planes serving over 85 cities.
“This frequency of flights is what gives us the flexibility to move fast and reliably,” Pöter explained. “Take the Kuala Lumpur to Singapore route, for example — we fly 11 times a day. That way, if something comes up and one flight is missed, there are always other options to get the parcel where it needs to be, on time.”
Efficiency measures have been built into Teleport’s systems to eliminate bottlenecks. “We’ve also built-in efficiency measures, like becoming a licensed customs agent and integrating the customs declaration process into our own tech systems,” Pöter said. “This eliminates the time wasted on third-party agents and physical customs application processes.”
Critically, the choice to utilise passenger belly space has kept costs competitive. “We’re delivering all of this at a cost that’s not only competitive, but fundamentally more affordable than other providers,” he noted.
Serving a region with 71 million SMEs — many historically restricted to local markets due to high cross-border delivery costs — Teleport’s affordable services have unlocked new growth in intra-ASEAN trade.
Teleport’s reach now goes beyond its original AirAsia footprint.
“What we call the Teleport Network today extends beyond the original AirAsia reach,” Pöter said. “We added three A321 freighters of our own, formed strategic partnerships with over 40 airlines — creating a belly-freighter hybrid network with extended reach across Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and established first-mile and last-mile services.”
This hybrid approach gives Teleport critical flexibility: “This gives us the flexibility to adapt to disruptions, optimise pricing, and move goods more efficiently throughout the value chain.”
Teleport’s decision to position itself for an e-commerce-driven market is paying off.
“We’ve seen incredible growth in our e-commerce business, with a 102 percent increase in 2024 compared to 2023,” Pöter shared. “Our eCommerce revenue also outpaced cargo growth at 139 percent, bringing the total revenue to RM328 million, and contributing to our record RM1.1 billion ringgit in revenue for 2024.”
While the types of goods moved have not dramatically changed, the volume surge underscores a structural shift in demand.
“When we built the Teleport Network, we anticipated a shift towards faster, more frequent deliveries,” Pöter said. “We designed it with the foresight to meet evolving customer expectations, which is why we’ve been able to keep up with the demand for shorter delivery times.”
A major focus now is securing direct volumes from China’s booming e-commerce marketplaces.
“We’re focusing on securing more direct volumes from China’s e-commerce marketplaces,” Pöter confirmed. “This is mainly through expanding our network beyond Southeast Asia, deepening our relationship to secure more capacity and routes through our partner airlines, and upgrading our technology to meet the needs of the e-commerce sector.”
Teleport is also seeing rising demand for last-mile deliveries. “Our Next Day product has grown 2.2x between January and December 2024, making our last-mile service in Singapore profitable,” Pöter said.
Reaching remote hubs
Unlike traditional networks that focus solely on capital cities, Teleport flies directly into secondary cities and more remote hubs.
“The Teleport Network doesn’t just fly into the major capitals of Southeast Asia, like Jakarta or Manila; we also fly directly into secondary hubs like Denpasar, Bali or Kota Kinabalu, Sabah,” he said.
“That means we can reach communities that are more remote faster, with less need for changing hands on the way.”
Even in regions without a full last-mile operation, strong partnerships ensure reliability. “In places where our last-mile services are fully operational — like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and Hong Kong — we’re able to move items to your doorstep. For areas where we don’t have boots on the ground yet, we’ve built strong partnerships with trusted local experts,” he added.
One key differentiator is Teleport’s tailored tech stack, developed specifically for e-commerce.
“A lot of the technology in air logistics is not catered for e-commerce, it’s built for general cargo,” Pöter explained. “What we’re working on right now is augmenting our tech stack to be optimised for eCommerce on two fronts: making our technology easy to use for the customer, providing them with the visibility and real-time tracking information they expect; and enhancing our internal operations.”
The core of this effort is integration. “By integrating back-end systems with our airline partners, solution providers, and customer-facing platforms, we gain a unified view of our parcels from pick-up to last-mile delivery,” he noted.
Predicting demand
Teleport’s use of technology extends to dynamic capacity planning. “This also allows us to monitor dynamic capacity across our flights and leverage advanced analytics to manage seasonal fluctuations and optimise parcel routing,” Pöter said.
Looking ahead, the stakes are high: air cargo’s share of eCommerce volumes in Southeast Asia is set to almost double.
“In Southeast Asia, e-commerce’s share in air cargo volumes will roughly double, from 11 percent in 2024 to 20 percent in 2029, driven by lightweight, high-frequency shipments replacing bulk freight,” Pöter stated.
