Air Freight

Logistics Management Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently caught up with Brandon Fried, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Airforwarders Association (AfA), an organization representing more than 275 member companies dedicated to moving cargo throughout the supply chain, with business models varying from domestic to worldwide freight forwarding operations.

Earnings per share, at $4.03, topped Wall Street expectations of $3.94, while revenue, at $17.8 billion, was up 9% annually, and net income, at $935 million rose 21%.

While the size of this new facility was not made public, Amazon officials said the new hub, which it expects to be operational next year, will create hundreds of new jobs, adding that unlike other gateways and facilities within Amazon Air’s network, the Regional Air Hub will be tailored specifically to Amazon Air’s larger scale regional needs.

Atlanta-based transportation and logistics bellwether UPS said this week that its on-time delivery performance for this year’s holiday season is seeing very strong results, due, in large part to what it called an unprecedented capacity expansion, as well as various new technology upgrades.

Earlier this week, FedEx Express, the air cargo subsidiary of FedEx, announced it has rolled out a new dedicated flight that four times a week that will move between Sydney, Australia and Singapore. Company officials said that this new offering is past of FedEx’s continued investment to boost its operational network and help Asia Pacific-based shippers expand globally.

Absent any contingency planning being made transparent to the industry, the risks of not addressing key issues could mean “chaos” for interrupted supply chains.

Quarterly revenue was up 7.3% annually at $17.4 billion, while earnings per share at $1.82 were up 26% (topping Wall Street estimates of $1.81 per share), with net income up 16.6% at $1.508 billion.

For August, the most recent month for which data is available, the TCI reading was 10.24, which, while still strong, did not measure up to July’s 14.04. The August reading was also below May and June at 11.4 and 11.18, respectively.

FedEx said that when the transaction is made official Manton will be a subsidiary of the its FedEx Trade Networks operating company.

The byproduct of retail shippers’ “pull forward” efforts to import goods in advance of new tariffs levied on products made in China remained intact based on the new edition of the Port Tracker report, which was released today by the National Retail Federation (NRF) and maritime consultancy Hackett Associates.

Hub officials said this sale represents the byproduct of an exploration of strategic alternatives for Mode that was undertaken by the Hub Group Board of Directors, which they said is part of an ongoing review of alternatives for creating shareholder value that it announced in August.

While air cargo volumes continue to stage a modest uptick, shippers are now waiting to see how the introduction of larger freight aircraft might serve to sustain this growth. At the same time, shippers need to keep an eye on which domestic airports are prepared to handle more capacity and the new demands driven by e-commerce.

Learn about the 35th Annual Quest for Quality Award winners for Air Carriers and Air Freight Forwarders.

FedEx subsidiary FedEx Express announced this week that it has rolled out a new flight into and out of Hanoi, Vietnam, which will connect the country’s capital to the FedEx APAC (Asian Pacific) hub based in Guangzhou, China.