automotive From a carrier’s
perspective, Peter Sedgley (right), senior vice president commercial worldwide for Dubai-based Emirates SkyCargo until his recent retirement, said similar trends had been noted. “During the recession, automotive component stocks got depleted and now that the industry is recovering, people are not going back to full inventories,” he commented. “As the demand for cars has increased again worldwide, so has the urgent requirement for components to keep the production lines moving and air freight is benefiting from that. Another factor helping to boost automotive industry use of air freight at present is that many of the deepsea container shipping lines have introduced slow sailing to reduce their fuel costs, effectively increasing their transit times.”
CHARTER TRENDS Leading air charter operators such as UK-based Chapman Freeborn, whose international network of offices includes an Asian presence in China (Beijing), India (Delhi and Mumbai) and Singapore, have noted similar trends. “In recent months, there has been a strong demand
from the automotive industry for the movement of components using both charter flights and OBC (on board courier) services,” confirms Bastian Mackuth, who is based at the company’s Frankfurt office in Germany and is responsible for developing its worldwide automotive industry-related business. He explained that while much of that business relates to intra-European movements, Chapman Freeborn also
handles shipments from India to Austria and, in recent months, from Mexico to Europe, South America to Europe and in both directions between Europe and the US. “We get requests to arrange charter flights of
components, mainly electronic items, from China to Europe, too,” Mackuth continued. “Out of countries like China, where there can be issues getting traffic rights for charter flights, we also run quite a lot of OBC operations.” Asked about the cost-effectiveness of using OBC services
to ship automotive components, he explained that moving a consignment of, say, 400kg from China to Europe using an OBC was “much cheaper” than organising a charter flight and faster than standard commercial air freight. “We have clients choosing to use OBC services out of countries like China and Mexico, for example, on a long-term basis.” The recent upturn in worldwide automotive industry
demand for the air transportation of components has also been felt by major global air express companies like DHL, which is involved in the intercontinental and regional movement of that traffic both as a door-to-door delivery service operator/forwarder and as a provider of air freight capacity through carriers like joint venture (with Lufthansa Cargo) cargo airline AeroLogic. In fact, reports Pascal Kemps, DHL’s strategy director
for the automotive sector, emergency shipments of automotive components moved by air, which tended to be the lighter items like electronics, have “gone through the roof” over the last year. Looking ahead, Kemps also identified an emerging
factor which, he suggested, could fuel future automotive industry demand for air freight but also place new demands on carriers and air freight/air express service providers. “The push to increase the ‘greenness’ of vehicles will have an impact on the types of automotive component flows,” he said.
conditions ahead of being launched in markets around the world. “The vehicles are sent to places like the west coast of the US, Oman or South Africa, for example, to be driven in desert areas.” In the case of leading European vehicle
manufacturers, van de Weg went on, test vehicles are mainly moved on freighter charter flights. “So this category of automotive business is very visible to us – it is easy to see what is being flown and who it is for – compared with regular component flows in consolidations where the carrier might not always be sure exactly what is on the aircraft and who the end customer is.” In addition to test vehicles, Cargolux
transports other complete cars and trucks, both new and old, on its freighters. Some major international forwarders
and logistics service providers also get involved with the movement of various vehicles by air, in addition to handling the shipment of automotive industry spare parts and production components. One example is German company
DB Schenker Logistics which, said a spokesman, oversees the air transport of finished vehicles for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to trade fairs, motor shows and test locations. “Those movements can be worldwide but are most commonly to Asia Pacific, notably China, and North America,” he added.
AIR LOGISTICSCHINA 23
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