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.