SA customers get access to electronic airfreight portal

SOUTH AFRICA has stepped into cyber-space for global airfreight rates. This follows the signing by Kintetsu World Express (KWE) of a contract for its operations in SA and 10 countries in Europe to use OAG Cargo’s Airfreight Rates (Afra) – an electronic portal designed to allow users to distribute and search for real-time worldwide cargo rates. According to Thomas Weppelmann, a Kintetsu director of business development, this latest move comes as the total number of airfreight rates published by Afra exceeds eight million for the first time. “In total,” he told FTW, “650 airlines have published tariffs on the site (www.oagcargo. com). This information is accessed regularly by over 10 400 users from 1 265 offices worldwide.” Also, Weppelmann added, expanding the usage of Afra into an additional seven countries will allow the company to build working relationships within the KWE group - and with the company’s customers as a global logistics partner. According to Bart Jan Haasbeek, director at OAG Cargo, Kintetsu has been a customer of Afra in Germany, the UK, Netherlands and Belgium. And, with this new agreement, it is extending its use of the application to also include the Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, SA, Switzerland and Sweden. A big advantage of the system is that rates previously distributed by airlines in a wide variety of formats – including mail, email with attachments and fax – are now accessible through a single webbased application. This allows users to search for all rates – including general, contract, ad hoc and net rates – to view and compare all rates in one place and view historical, current and future rates.