Beat the congestion – use consolidations
Since the beginning of the pandemic, air cargo shippers have faced greatly diminished supply and greatly increased pricing. As the summer continues, we are not seeing a return of passenger flights from either US or European airlines. For shippers this means continued constrained belly capacity and any significant return to rates of summers prior will be delayed.
While many businesses have moved to a virtual environment, handling air cargo virtually obviously isn’t possible. As a result, airlines who years ago transitioned from self-handling their cargo are now at the mercy of third party companies who manage multiple airlines simultaneously.
The erratic schedule of charters coupled with regularly scheduled freighters and the extremely manual process required to unload passenger freighters, or “phreighters” have led to extreme congestion at major gateway airports such as Chicago and Atlanta.
Congestion takes the form of prolonged time from unloading – because the plane has to keep moving – to being broken down and made available. What should reasonably take hours is in some cases taking days – an unreasonable expectation when a premium is paid in today’s COVID-constrained environment.
Enter…consolidations. Bestway offers consolidated air freight services from many major global gateways. The advantage is that our customers’ freight is bundled together and tendered to the airline as a single pallet or container (called a Unit Load Device, or ULD for short). They load it intact, they unload it intact and we can pick it up just hours after arrival and take it to our warehouse to be broken down and made available for delivery saving valuable hours or days for in-demand items like PPE or just in time parts for a manufacturing line.
Coupled with Bestway’s customs clearance services, goods are released while en route to the United States and can be retrieved and delivered immediately.
Consolidation services are just one of the ways that Bestway is focused on delivering value and speed to our clients throughout the Midwest. For more information including schedules, transit times and a quote, contact us today.
