Express demand boosts airfreight

ALAN PEAT BIG COMPANIES with a big demand for airfreight space is the headline of the moment on the US-SA air trade, according to Dave Shepherd, vice-president (commercial) of the Americas for British Airways World Cargo (BAWC). “It’s a particularly strong route at the moment because the currency fluctuation is advantageous,” he told FTW. “Flows of traffic are out of most of the US,” he said, “although the bigger customers tend to source product from the east of the country – with consolidation in New York. “And, although there is a very big demand for retail goods going down at the moment, we’re mostly carrying general cargo – and it’s difficult to say what the special growth trends are by commodity.” BAWC flies all the US air cargo through London, and on to SA on one of the 24 scheduled passenger flights operated by British Airways (BA). That’s an attractive scheme for BAWC, Shepherd added, with a combination of limited cargo space and a big demand from all the markets served by the route giving the operation improved yields. Also giving an added boost to the SA-US route has been BA’s addition of an eighth daily frequency in its flights between London’s Heathrow and New York’s John F Kennedy Airport. Meanwhile, Shepherd highlighted what might have seemed a lesser section of the trade – but one which has been showing surprisingly big growth. At the Americas end of the route there are good connections with Calgary in Canada – an astonishingly major source of mining products. “We are seeing flows of traffic from Calgary into Angola via South Africa,” he said. Also helping to expand demand on the US-SA trade have been big developments of two of the company’s products – its express offering and its “constant climate” product for perishable cargoes.