Africa the consistent front runner in airfreight consolidations

Africa has entrenched
itself as one of the
top destinations for
the airfreight division of
independent consolidator CFR
Freight – and Johannesburg
branch manager – airfreight,
Dave Gurney, is bullish about
future growth on the route.
“Over the year, Africa has
consistently been our top
destination – although it was
recently superseded by the
US because of huge volumes
of textiles moving to that
market,” Gurney told FTW.
And the product mix is
as varied as the destinations
served.
“There’s a huge amount of
mining cargo, and we’re also
seeing a lot more requests for
cross trade into Africa,” says
Gurney.
Another area of strong
potential is Delivered Duty
Unpaid traffic into the region,
and since we offer DDUs
into 13 African countries, we
believe we have the edge.”
The biggest lanes are
Lagos, Abidjan and Accra in
West Africa, and Nairobi and
Dar es Salaam in East Africa.
While CFR recorded
good growth in the first two
quarters of the year, the real
growth was evident in quarter
three, general manager –
airfreight Dave Graham told
FTW.
“The division really started
from scratch at the end of
last year – and that entailed
recruiting a new management
team and dedicated sales staff
and putting all the processes
in place, which took a lot
of leg work. We were able
to reap the dividends of our
efforts in the third quarter.”
Graham believes the
company is ideally placed
in terms of its size. “We’re
not so big that our customers
are an account number – but
we’re big enough to have
the buying power and punch
with the airlines to negotiate
competitive rates.
“Our philosophy is not
based on short-term business.
We’re interested in longterm
partnerships with our
customers.”