Strong African network underpins growth

To raise awareness of its improved direct service from London into Johannesburg and Cape Town, CFR Freight is running a United Kingdom (UK) air imports promotion from now until the end of December. The ‘Lucky in Lunch’ promotion sees CFR’s airfreight division randomly drawing one of its UK customers each month in each of its branches to buy the winning company’s airfreight department a free lunch, explained CFR’s airfreight general manager, Stephen Bishop. “We see a lot of opportunity out of the UK, hence our renewed focus on the route,” he said. He added that while the trade lane was traditionally very competitive – with tight margins and limited space on direct flights – CFR believed there was still a high demand for cargo movements between SA and the UK. He told FTW that the company’s exports in general out of South Africa had been on the increase, with CFR’s strong African network underpinning the growth. “We have also updated our air exports database. This means we can now offer our clients the maximum dimensions, flight frequencies, routings and average transit time for all of the 12 500 plus routings we offer,” said Bishop. According to him, information technology (IT) plays an important role in increasing operational efficiencies and improving service to the customer. The airfreight division has focused on boosting its internal and external IT solutions. “We have increased the size of our IT team and developers under our group IT manager, Antoni Dabrowski, and have a number of exciting developments in various stages of completion,” Bishop said. He pointed out that all IT solutions were designed to be cross-functional and integrate with the other CFR group divisions, including seafreight and warehousing. “We are also going to be improving our in-house customer relationship management system and new client portal to ensure our sales and operational staff have all the tools they need to keep our clients happy,” said Bishop. He commented that the “constant rates battle” amongst carriers remained a challenge, with each airline trying to maximise loads. “This can be a double-edged sword as transit time, service and pricing are all equally important, and to stay ahead we always have to offer the best combination of these. However it is our responsibility to build mutually beneficial relationships with clients and service providers to ensure continued success,” said Bishop. INSERT & CAPTION We see a lot of opportunity out of the UK. – Stephen Bishop