US JUMPS INTO THE BREACH
In response to the restricted air freight capacity situation caused by COVID-19, DACHSER
Air & Sea Logistics has drawn up a charter contingency plan. As a result, customers can
avail themselves of a robust and reliable flight service from Frankfurt to China.
Because of the coronavirus epidemic, many airlines have been discontinuing or
the fragile cargo was able to be quickly and safely transferred for its
onward trucking leg to the factory.
Antonov in action
In another recent episode, Chapman Freeborn arranged for AN124-
100 freighter to fly from France to South Africa. The aircraft was
readily available to Chapman Freeborn and from the confirmation
to the actual flight just five days elapsed, which says a lot about the
administration process involved here: this was deemed an operation
that would have needed a minimum of two weeks under normal
circumstances because of traffic rights, planning and the acquisition
of essential trucking permissions.
The operation saw both Belgium and South Africa working
together, with Chapman Freeborn contributing a value-added
service in arranging for the trucking of the cargo (which comprised
abnormal loads) from the site to the aircraft on behalf of the
customer. The operation was overseen by Chapman Freeborn’s
offices in Bruges and Johannesburg, in South Africa. With a payload
reducing their flights to China, leading to capacity bottlenecks in the market. The
DACHSER Global Management Air team has reacted and has organised its own charter
flights to China. Several scheduled charter flights to Shanghai have now been drawn up
and implemented: on the first, DACHSER transported various medical supplies.
of 63 tonnes in total, the largest
abnormally-sized item was
not able to fit within a normal
freighter, thus limiting the
operation to an AN124.
In conclusion
Whilst the foregoing all suggests
that the sector is quite buoyant,
under the surface it is a slightly
different story.
The US/Chinese tariff war
has hit this specialist business
sector hard, and whilst the
world is very much the charter
operator’s oyster, nonetheless
the sector has been feeling the
pinch. However, at the time of
writing there was a degree of
optimism in the air, with trade
tensions finally starting to ease
between East and West and
the COVID-19 virus situation
beginning to stabilise, in China
at least. As ALI went to press,
the scenario was shifting further,
with Chinese manufacturing
once more picking up and
workplace restrictions being
lifted. With passenger flights
being cut back globally, cargo
space is suddenly at a premium:
in this context, air freight
should be in demand, since
maritime alternatives remain
more time-consuming.
www.airlogisticsinternational.com April 2020 11
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