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What is Air Freight?
What is Air Freight?
Air freight is a process of moving your goods from one port to another through air as the way of transportation. Although expensive, yet it's the fastest and most reliable mode of transportation. The order for your products can increase and your brand can be confidently impacted establishing your credibility as a reliable business.
Air freight forwarding service provides a timely solution to help improve your speed to market, prevent stock out situations, and keep up with the demand from constantly changing trends.
Why choose Air freight?
Transparency: its helps to clarify the complex value chain that involves a range of stakeholders, from forwarders to ground handling agents to customs and packaging services. Transparency allows for simplification of the shipping and clearance processes.
Quality: When shippers choose airfreight services, the main determining factors that measure quality of service delivery are: schedule integrity (one hundred per cent reliabilit
on flown as booked of shipments); up-to-date information on tracking systems, and smooth and hassle free delivery processes.
How much does air freight cost?
The demand for air freight is limited by cost, typically priced 4–5 times that of road transport and 12–16 times that of sea transport. Air freight rates generally range from $1.50–$4.50 per kilogram, while the value of air cargo typically exceeds $4.00 per kilogram.
Domestic vs. international
The travel process for domestic air and international air shipments is the same, but there are critical differences to note. If you’re importing or exporting air cargo, you’ll experience more involved documentation and will have to clear your items with Customs. Other differences include the cut-off times for tendering a shipment and the delivery options.
How air freight works
- Choose an air freight forwarding company, and agree a price for the service you require.
- The freight forwarder will collect the goods from your supplier – either they’ll be already packed (known as RFT – ready for travel), or the forwarder will carry out the necessary packing
- Your goods are taken to the airport, and need to clear customs at the point of origin
- Goods are loaded into the plane for their journey. In the case of a consolidated shipment this could take a few days
- On arrival in the UK, the goods have to pass customs again and will be only be released when all duty and taxes are paid
- The goods are delivered to you as per your agreement with the freight forwarding agency.
How are air freight rates calculated?
What you’re shipping, the carrier and airline you use, and the shipment’s chargeable weight affect the rate. The chargeable weight is the gross weight (including the freight, packaging and pallet) or the volumetric weight — whichever is greater. Volumetric weight is calculated using a formula that divides the cargo’s measurements (LxWxH) by a dimensional weight factor. Typically, larger items that weigh less take up more space than small, heavy items, which is why air cargo carriers use the chargeable weight formula.
Different types of Air Freight
- Passenger Airlines.
- All-Cargo.
- Integrated Express.
- Combination Aircraft.
Passenger airlines are the companies that you see when you book your vacation flights. They are airlines such as Southwest Airlines, Alitalia, and Turkish Airlines. These companies, though they exist to move people, will often offer for sale the space in the belly compartment of the airplane which is typically where passenger luggage is stowed (See the Airbus A300 aircraft cross-section displaying cargo containers on lower deck show in Figure 1.2.) Passenger airlines have many weight and space limitations for the cargo they will accept, but they can be a convenient option due to the number of frequent flights to destinations.
All-Cargo
As the name connotes, these carriers move air cargo and offer freight services, but do not offer passenger services. All-cargo carriers have less weight and dimension limitations due to the wide-body and containerized cargo aircrafts in their fleet which leave plenty of room for larger, heavier items, such as aerospace and automotive parts and materials.
This category also includes heavy-lift cargo freighters designed for project cargo. Since heavy-lift freighters are uncommon, their charter services are highly specialized and rarely operate on a scheduled basis.
Integrated Express
These carriers will move your cargo from the door at point A to the door at point B. They will pick-up your shipment from origin via truck, fly it to its destination terminal, then deliver it to the destination via truck. Some of the most popular integrated express carriers in North America are UPS, FedEx Express, and DHL. These types of carriers rely heavily on their air cargo hubs, where they will unload the cargo, sort it by destination, and load it onto the appropriate outbound aircraft – all through the use of automated sorting. This process allows for quick turnaround times and extensive delivery capabilities.
Combination Aircraft
Carriers that have both passenger and freighter aircrafts in their fleet are known as Combination Aircraft Carriers. Examples of such companies are Lufthansa and Emirates.
Advantages of Air Freight
- The fastest shipping method.
- Highly reliable arrival and departure times.
- Send your cargo almost anywhere.
- Low insurance premium means large savings.
- High level of security and reduced risk of theft and damage.
- Less need for warehousing and fewer items in stock.
- Less packaging required.
- Follow the status of your cargo.
House and Master AWBs
The air waybill is the most important document issued by a carrier either directly or through its authorized agent. It is a non-negotiable transport document that covers the transport of cargo from airport to airport. By accepting a shipment, an IATA (International Air Transport Association) cargo agent is acting on behalf of the carrier whose air waybill is issued.
Air waybills have eleven digit numbers which can be used to make bookings, check the status of delivery, and a current position of the shipment.
Air waybills are issued in eight sets of different colors. The first three copies are classified as originals. The first original, green in color, is the issuing carrier's copy. The second, colored pink, is the consignee's copy. The third, colored blue, is the shipper's copy. A fourth brown copy acts as the Delivery Receipt or proof of delivery. The other four copies are white.