CFR hints at expanded US import product

A strong focus on North America is paying dividends for the airfreight division of neutral consolidator CFR Freight which has seen significant growth on this trade lane. “We’ve put a lot of effort into developing our import product from America where we see plenty of opportunity and room for growth,” said newly appointed general manager – airfreight, Stephen Bishop. “Building our west coast consolidation product out of Los Angeles has been very successful – and thanks to client demand we recently increased capacity to two consols per week. “On the back of the success of this product, we are looking to replicate it in other major centres in the US – in particular Chicago, Atlanta and New York.” CFR will look at similar capacity agreements in those centres. “The blueprint we’ve established in terms of making it successful is that the capacity agreements need to be with one carrier. Effectively this allows us to offer a Rolls Royce service at a Volkswagen price,” said Bishop A strong global network is key to the success of the service, and Bishop believes that CFR’s US associate member in the Air Cargo Group, Shipco Airfreight Inc, provides the additional operational and marketing muscle. “Shipco’s Manny Ruiz recently visited South Africa to market our products out of the US and to meet local clients. We have seen some traction from that visit with additional cargo coming on board.” A big challenge at the moment is capacity out of the US, says Bishop. “Some carriers have decreased capacity which increases demand and increases the price – and this highlights the need to have capacity agreements with airlines so that you can offer the best service at competitive rates.” In terms of South American business, Argentina and Brazil are key airfreight destinations for CFR. “From an export point of view we’ve seen fair volumes moving to Brazil,” says Bishop. And with the Soccer World Cup and Olympic games on the horizon, it’s a market of future opportunity. When it comes to rates, total transparency is the watch-word. “We send out flyers on a monthly basis to all our clients providing rates, destinations and number of uplifts per week – in fact everything the client needs to know. And we would be happy to add anyone to our database. Further deails are available from any one of our airfreight branches in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth.” CAPTION Stephen Bishop … ‘capacity challenge out of US.’