Shippers who use airfreight consolidation can save between 30% and 50%, according to Bogen Chi, director of global air freight products at global 3PL company, CH Robinson.
He said in a recent blog that the airfreight landscape had experienced some dramatic shifts in recent years with airlines increasingly engaging directly with large shippers in a variety of industries.
“There is only so much air cargo space available. If large shippers absorb a larger slice of the available capacity, small and medium-sized shippers will probably find it a lot more difficult to secure air space for their freight,” said Chi, adding that peak seasons would put even more pressure on available airfreight capacity.
“Consolidation is one bright spot to consider in this challenging environment,” he said, pointing out that shippers of any size could use an airfreight consolidation service. But, he added, it was especially useful for organisations with lean supply chains or those that operated in just-in-time (JIT) environments who needed to ship smaller quantities of material more frequently, but didn’t have enough freight to charter a flight on their own.
“Freight forwarders, or air consolidators, accept complementary freight from multiple shippers and combine this freight into Unit Load Devices (ULDs) – essentially big cookie sheets that slide into a cargo plane’s racking system for transport,” Chi explained. He believes the key to sanity in 2018 will lie in understanding the trends and the various options.
Chi suggested that shippers started by analysing their current transit times and delivery dates, and evaluating how they impacted ability to execute an effective airfreight strategy. “Many companies that perform this exercise discover that lengthening transit times alone can often save between 15% and 20%, before other process changes are even considered,” he said.
