CARGO VOLUMES on the SA-Malawi route have been sufficiently healthy to justify Kuehne & Nagel's decision to launch its own weekly, groupage road service between Johannesburg and Blantyre. It's come off quite nicely, said K&N director Karl-Heinz Balzer. With weekly consolidations of up-to two 12-metre, lcl (less-than container load) containers-a-week travelling between our Isando and Blantyre depots - as well as regular full truck loads.
The synergy in the operation comes in the meld between the international cargoes K&N is forwarding into Malawi via SA, and local volumes. But the cargoes from SA to Malawi are now quite strong in volume in their own right, said Balzer.
In Malawi, the company has a bonded store, and delivers/collects to-and-from customers with its own delivery-vehicle fleet.The line-haul section of the route is handled by sub-contracted road hauliers. Most of these are Malawian transporters, because, Balzer told FTW: Most of the business is done on a collectbasis, and we need hauliers who are able to accept payment in the Malawian currency, kwachas.
The SA manager in charge is Ryan Appannah, transferred-in to run the operation in 1995, after 20 years working in Durban in overborder seafreight traffic movement. Heading up the Malawian end of the operation is Tino Sellas, m.d. of Nakufreight Ltd.
