It's difficult to dispute that 2010 continues to be a really difficult year pertaining to transportation, freight, cargo and logistics industries. A lot of carriers, steam lines, railways, and truckers are already confronted with reduced freight volume, lean earnings, and nearly all have experienced tough layoffs. A single segment of the marketplace has performed remarkably well however: Air Freight.

Air Freight volumes have increased almost 40 percent throughout the first six months of 2010. Global freight trends have indicated that Air Freight, and Freight Forwarding have exploded at nearly three times the rate of ocean forwarding (ship cargo) with regard to the first half of 2010, to the satisfaction of most air freight executives. Almost all freight forwarders would welcome this sharp increase in volume following 2009 which in turn demonstrated to be a year of reduction in shipping and freight tonnage.

Transport Intelligence has reported that Air Freight is increased in excess of 38% throughout the initial six months of 2010, while Ocean Freight Forwarding is up a mere 13 percent. While most would likely embrace any kind of good increase in volumes at this point, the fact that Air Freight made these considerable increases relative to Ocean Cargo leaves the marketplace in a holding pattern while waiting in order to observe if freight distribution will return to much more traditional levels. Transport Intelligence believes the actual increase in these trends followed by freight carriers and cargo ship lines decision to restrict capacity is definitely placing tension on shippers and their third party logistics companies to pay greater costs of operations. Transport Intelligence's Report can be found here (http://blog.freightaccess.com/2010/08/annual-global-freight-forwarding-report-2010-from-t-i/).

The Annual Global Freight Forwarding Report by Transport Intelligence spotted an increase in volume for the transportation marketplace felt by freight carriers, which actually followed a 23 percent drop in 2009 from 2008 shipment volumes. It appears this unpredictability in freight has not been easy to accept for freight forwarders and cargo carriers. Only six months ago many of these third party logistics providers and airlines were worried about exactly how to sustain operations at trim staff levels and now many have been slammed with more shipments they may handle with existing resources.

The freight marketplace is anticipating a balancing time period back to more historical freight volumes as well as absence of such volatility. Most manufacturers have forgone conventional supply chain inventories because of to a variety of aspects such as absence of available company funds. The absence of inventory helps to explain the increase in air freight traffic. It seems that inventories can return to regular levels throughout the up coming few years. Transportation Intelligence believes the recovery will require until 2013 to be able to come back to pre-2013 levels especially in Europe.

Improved Security of Freight Cargo presents minimal difficulties during first week of enforcement.

This week, the federal legislation requiring 100 percent screening of air cargo flying in passenger aircraft went in to effect. Most Freight Forwarders experienced little if any impact, since a lot more than 95 percent report no problems during this first week. A lot more than 709 surveys were sent to the Air Freight Association looking to gain feedback concerning the actual ease of integration. Just five percent of respondents reported significant difficulties adhering to the new guidelines, which in turn were not correlated to any particular airline nor any airport.

The changeover came at a especially good period for the air freight marketplace as August is typically a slower month for airlines and freight carriers. The AFA attributes this smooth transition to the educational efforts and preparedness procedures set forth by the AFA, federal government, as well as numerous freight forwarders to ensure integration has been carried out correctly.

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