It's tough to dispute that 2010 has become a incredibly difficult year with regard to transportation, freight, cargo and logistics industries. Most carriers, steam lines, railways, and truckers are already faced with diminished freight volume, slim profits, and many have experienced hard lay offs. One segment of the marketplace has performed interestingly well however: Air Freight.

Air Freight volumes have risen nearly 40 percent through the first six months of 2010. Global freight trends have indicated that Air Freight, and Freight Forwarding have exploded at almost triple the rate of ocean forwarding (ship cargo) for the first half of 2010, at the delight of most air freight business owners. Nearly all freight forwarders would embrace this steep rise in volume following 2009 which in turn turned out to be a year of reduction in shipping and freight tonnage.

Transport Intelligence has reported that Air Freight is actually increased over 38% throughout the first six months of 2010, while Ocean Freight Forwarding is up merely 13 percent. While many would likely embrace any kind of positive increase in volumes at this time, the actual fact that Air Freight reported these significant gains in comparison to Ocean Cargo leaves the marketplace in a holding pattern when waiting in order to see if freight distribution will come back to much more traditional levels. Transport Intelligence believes the particular increase in all these trends followed by freight carriers and cargo shiplines decision to restrict capacity will be undoubtedly placing pressure on shippers and their third party logistics companies to pay increased costs of operations. Transport Intelligence's Report may be found here (http://blog.freightaccess.com/2010/08/annual-global-freight-forwarding-report-2010-from-t-i/).

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

The freight marketplace is expecting a leveling time period back to more traditional freight volumes as well as absence of such volatility. Most manufacturers have forgone traditional supply chain inventories due to a range of aspects including absence of available business funding. The shortage of inventory helps to describe the spike in air freight traffic. It appears that inventories will return to regular levels through the next few years. Transportation Intelligence feels the recovery will require until 2013 to be able to come back to pre-2013 levels particularly in Europe.

Greater Security of Freight Cargo poses minimal complications during first week of enforcement.

This week, the federal procedures requiring 100 percent screening of air cargo moving in passenger aircraft went into effect. Most Freight Forwarders felt little if any impact, since a lot more than 95 percent report no issues during this first week. Much more than 709 surveys were sent to the Air Freight Association looking to obtain feedback relating to the actual ease of integration. Only five percent of respondents reported major problems adhering to the new laws, which were not correlated to any specific airline nor any airport.

The changeover came at a specifically beneficial time for the air freight marketplace as August is usually a slow 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, and numerous freight forwarders to ensure integration has been done properly.

FULL STORY HERE

By Brad Hollister