Gearing up for airfreight growth

Independent consolidator CFR Freight has strengthened its Durban airfreight team as it embarks on a growth strategy in this market. According to Stephen Bishop, the company’s general manager for airfreight, the outlook for the Durban market for the rest of the year is extremely positive. “We believe we have seen the back of the quiet period and we are gearing up for growth in our operations and within our Durban airfreight team,” he said. Bishop says volumes have softened in Durban over the past 18 months but they did not expect any slowdowns and growing the business made sense. “For both imports and exports there are limited options out of Durban in terms of international carriers which places a greater emphasis on trucking and routing cargo via Johannesburg,” he explained. “This is an avenue on which CFR is looking to capitalise in order to reduce the cost of trucking on exports where carriers are not common-rating origin hubs.” He said in light of the everincreasing strength of the overall CFR and ZacPak infrastructure across South Africa, they were confident they could meet the goals set for growing the airfreight division. CAPTION Stephen Bishop