Customs delays have affected almost 87% of those who participated in the FTW airfreight survey – with only 13.3% saying their operations had not been affected at all.
“A lot of our cargo is very valuable. These shipments are thus routinely stopped, with officials requesting supporting documents,” said Eugene Duvenage, airfreight export manager: national at Röhlig-Grindrod Logistics.
He told FTW that the problem with this was that the shipments were then not released in time for the scheduled flight. “This means we incur storage costs and worse, an irate customer.”
Owner of Mercury Freight, Margrit Wolff, told FTW that her company experienced customs delays “all the time”. Airfreight is used for valuable cargo because of the minimised risks with faster delivery. “But Customs seems to query each export shipment worth over a million rand,” she said.
Chris Williams, from SA-based import company, Mr Filter, pointed out that customs delays – “for no apparent reason” – were longer than transit times.
To read this, and other FTW articles from the latest airfreight feature, click here.
