Airfreight rates are starting to stabilise, albeit with several fuel increases of late. This is good news for the sector, which has been plagued by exceptionally high rates and serious capacity constraints in recent months.According to Stephen Bishop, airfreight director at SACO CFR, new capacity is also entering the market regularly. “It seems we will keep several f lights heading into our winter rotation, which is good levels too. We are, therefore, bullish about the performance of our import and export products in the months ahead,” he told Freight News.Megan Ekermans, who heads up route development, said that with the additional capacity and increase in global volumes, preferential pricing was coming back into the market. “We are very confident in the service we offer. By strengthening our buying power, it enables our clients to be more competitive in their market.”Bishop said the company’s Shanghai consolidation service was also operating again after the Chinese New Year. The service has a blocked space agreement (BSA) directly with Etihad.“We are looking to secure as much additional capacity heading into the new rotation as we can get our hands on. Getting more airline solutions out of the Far East is a top priority for us,” he added. “We have also reviewed our internal pricing processes and streamlined these to ensure that we are offering competitive pricing to our clients first. This, we believe, will be a strong differentiator to our clients in the service they are offering their own.”Ekermans said customers were still very price/rate-driven and shopping around for rates within the market remained a key trend at present.“Export rates seem to have stabilised again after the discovery of the Omicron variant of the Covid-19 coronavirus in South Africa last year.“This variant had caused backlogs in some areas, especially at Frankfurt Airport, but we have confirmed capacity for our consol offering,” she said.Bishop said they had seen a good start on exports this year, a development many were attributing to the challenges in the ocean freight sector. “We have seen imports start to slow down, but we are hopeful this will pick up now after the Chinese New Year.
Logistics major adds muscle to its airfreight division
Growing its local airfreight business continues to be a strategy for Leschaco, which has recently employed 10 more people in its South African operations.According to Peter Schmidt-Löff ler, CEO for Sub-Saharan Africa, the employment drive has boosted operations, allowing the company to not only increase its airfreight shipments both on the export and import side, but to maintain its service levels. “We see the airfreight market growing,” said Schmidt-Löff ler.Commenting on trends in the airfreight sector, he said customers were increasingly demanding guaranteed space at market-related rates. “Importers are also ordering more and more on a just-in-time (JIT) basis, which means their cargo must f ly out.”This, he said, continued to contribute to the growth in the airfreight sector. “The demand for airfreight remains high.”Schmidt-Löff ler said space was still a challenge, considering the number of airlines grounded after the outbreak of the global pandemic, but carriers were gradually returning to the skies and coming back into the South African market.“With more carriers f lying into South Africa there is, of course, the opportunity to find viable airfreight solutions for importers and exporters,” he said. “Another opportunity for the sector has to do with the challenges being experienced in ocean freight, where delays and blank sailings continue to put pressure on the system. This has led to an increase in demand for airfreight that we do not foresee tapering off at all soon."