Cargo Airports and Services

Cargo Airports and Services

It has been a challenging few months, and it seems likely that the global air freight market overall will remain flat at best in 2012. Compared with the strong first half of 2011, year-on-year figures are likely to show some significant declines in these first few months, although those comparisons will improve in the second half of the year, and there are no signs of volumes dropping off a cliff the way they did in late 2008 and early 2009.

Air freight has become used to peaks and troughs, and most people will have learned further lessons from the 2008-2009 decline, in ways to build operational flexibility into their businesses. Or if not, they should have done… Managing volatility has become a key competitive tool, or survival tool.

There are areas that are also still experiencing growth, and the liberalisation of aviation services is continuing in various parts of the world, bringing opportunities for international organisations. Some of the opportunities and challenges in Asia are discussed on pages 6-11 of this issue.

Meanwhile, there will be companies looking to take advantage of challenges facing their competitors, making acquisitions at reduced prices and consolidating or forming alliances that help create efficiencies.

Not everyone will have the cashflow – or the confidence – to make counter-cyclical investments, but there is a need for creativity and innovative thinking in challenging times, in order to identify opportunities. One example of this is discussed within the Interview article on pages 28-30, where Menzies, accepting the fact that forwarders wanted airside warehousing space at Amsterdam Schiphol, adapted their business model to allow Ceva and MOL Logistics to operate from within the Menzies facility.

This kind of innovation, partnership, and integration can help companies survive and prosper in challenging times, but can also move the sector forward to a place where both customers’ and suppliers’ needs are being fulfilled better than before, and the airport space is made to operate more efficiently.

Air freight has been discussing how to compete with the ‘integrators’ for more than 30 years, and intelligent ‘integration’ of the handling facilities of customers and suppliers may be one way towards achieving that.

Necessity can be the mother of creation, and perhaps also of integration

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