Moves afoot to publish airfreight market status

If the Air Cargo Operators
Committee (Acoc) plans
come to fruition, we
may – for the first time
ever – have airfreight
market statistics in this
country.
This would satisfy a
long-felt desire amongst
market researchers in
the freight industry.
Seafreight stats
are freely available from
the Transnet National
Ports Authority (TNPA)
and the SA Revenue
Service (Sars), but
the airfreight market
has always remained
an unknown quantity.
Airlines in their own right
have always refused to
release their own
figures – justifiably
declaring these to be
confidential information
– and releasing them
would be of competitive
advantage to their
competitors.
But now, if Acoc
succeeds, general
airfreight stats would be
published by Sars.
“We are going to
work with the Board of
Airline Representatives,”
said Alwyn Rautenbach,
MD of Airlink Cargo
and vice-chairman of
Acoc. “We want to see
if we can convince Sars
customs to make this
information publicly
available.”
Every detail is
submitted to Sars,
he added –
commodity
type, quantity,
value,
everything.
But, to protect
the airlines,
individual
details
would
not be
included
– just as
they are not
revealed in
generalised
seafreight figures.
“We want to
organise a meeting
with Sars in June,”
Rautenbach told FTW,
“just as soon as we find
the right people to talk
to.”
And after that, at long
last, everybody in the
freight industry may be
able to talk about the
airfreight market with
some authority – backed
up by stats to prove each
point.