Cargo committee convenes to find solutions, writes Alan Peat
WHAT CAPE forwarders feared about the disappearance of the domestic airfreight industry - currently run almost exclusively by SAA Cargo - appears to have been realised, according to Gavin Cooper, m.d. of Seair Freight and Cape chairman of SAAFF (SA Association of Freight Forwarders).
To quote what we were told at the June 20 meeting with SAA Cargo, he said, the whole issue of fleet replacement at SAA has been driven 100% by passenger requirements to cut losses to the airline.
There appears to have been very little consultation with Cargo to ascertain their requirements for domestic and regional airfreight.
The problem at the root of the matter is SAA's intended replacement of its present Airbus fleet with the low cargo-capacity Boeing 737-800 aircraft.
The first 737-800 is due in two weeks or so, said Cooper, with the first Airbus going off by September and the whole phase to be completed by next February.
At the end of the day, the SAA fleet will have only two types of aircraft - the 737-800 (with maybe a few 737-200 freighters) and 747s. This to service the domestic, into-Africa and other international needs.
The answer for Cape airfreight users, according to SAA Cargo, comes in the form of domestic flights every 30 minutes - offering, SAAFF was told, the same amount of cargo/passenger space overall.
But, said Cooper, no stats - detailed or otherwise - to support this claim. They could not even confirm how many kilos the hold would take.
The big problem - identified by other cargo users of the 737-800 aircraft, and conceded by SAA Cargo - is the limited aircraft access.
The limit to package size, said Cooper, could be as little as 100-150 kgs.
Also, cargo will be loose stowed into the holds. This, in turn, would produces huge problems for a consignment of, say, 1 000 cartons of fruit.
It would have to have double handling - and this would pose problems of possible damage, pilferage, short-shipments, and the like.
Indeed, the whole matter is so commodity-sensitive, that Cooper feels that plans will have to be made to match product categories to airfreight capacity.
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