Rocketing Africa trade keeps charter carrier on its toes

“YOU CAN place a blanket across the map of Africa and say that’s where we deliver. The entire continent has opened up trade with South Africa in the last 10 years,” says Fast International managing director Gary Murphy.
A year ago Murphy, whose company is one of the country’s leaders in airfreight charters, warned the freight forwarding industry to prepare for what he termed ‘mind boggling opportunities’ throughout the continent.
“As each country settles down after the conflict phase in their history, it eyes what we can send them in the way of development goods. Machinery, food and telecommunications head the list. It has been a constant upward graph in growth for the past decade and there is no stopping.”
Ironically Nigeria, one of the largest consumers of South African exports, has become one of the poorest served countries by scheduled airlines. That, says Murphy, has opened the airways to chartered freighters which have been taking on massive loads from Johannesburg International Airport destined for Lagos.
“We flew around 650 tons there during the last quarter of 2003. We dispatched the urgent portion of a consignment of 4 000 tons of electronic equipment, the bulk of which went off by sea. But the essential items were sent on every available freighter we could charter.
“The cell phone business continues to enjoy huge growth throughout other African countries. We service one of South Africa’s major suppliers and this alone takes up a dedicated section of our company.
The majority of consignments in the past two or three years have been for destinations to the more northerly and north-western parts of the continent. But newcomers to the Fast International services have been Mozambique and Angola.”