Road feeders provide airfreight back-up

As express airfreight
demand shows
signs of recovery,
SA Airlink Cargo
is gearing up for growth by
growing partnerships and
developing alternative services
to make the most of the
opportunities.
Airlink Cargo spokesperson
Lebohang Moya said the
company had seen growing
demand in recent months
following a slow-down as the
rand weakened last year.
“We noted an increase in the
movement of pharmaceuticals
to Maseru, Lesotho and
Sikhupe, Swaziland. The
perishable industry and
movement of live animals by air
has seen significant growth not
only domestically but regionally
and internationally as well,”
Moya said.
“These are time-sensitive
commodities which make
them ideal for airfreight. We
facilitate the movement of
perishables from our regional
branches to international
destinations through the use of
our interlines,” Moya said.
“If we are unable assist using
our interline partners then we
still facilitate it through an
agent as an added service if the
shipment originates from one of
our branches.”
Moya said in some instances
the firm had partnered with
competitors to take advantage
of opportunities.
“We have also developed a
road feeder service (RFS) for
our Johannesburg-Gaborone
route as a means of managing
high volumes that our cargo
capacity on the flights cannot
handle. We are looking at
expanding this RFS service
to other sectors to provide an
alternative for high-volume
cargo that would need to be
split over a number of flights,”
Moya said.
The company had upgraded
its CargoLink system to make
it user friendly with a portal for
clients to create their own air
waybills (AWB), she added.
“The portal interfaces with
our system which then not
only sees the client forfeit our
document fee but allows an
even shorter hand-in time as
they have pre-created the AWB.
Our acceptance staff only
verifies the information and
prints out our system version,”
she said.
“The goal is to go completely
paperless with e-freight.
CAPTION
Growing demand for express airfreight services.