Air Freight

Due to a whole host of factors—including, most notably, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, more people staying at and working from home, among others—has led to a spate in e-commerce-based parcel shipping activity, which kicked off, in earnest, in March 2020, and has not subsequently abated since then. That was a key takeaway from the new edition of the Parcel Shipping Index, which was recently released by Stamford, Ct.-based Pitney Bowes, a global technology services provider of...

​The trucking industry is joining other business lobbying groups for a late push to pass the bipartisan $1 trillion roads and bridges infrastructure plan and leave a much larger $3.5 trillion “human infrastructure” package to another day.

Plans for this facility were initially introduced by DHL in November 2019, and the company said that this new facility, which it invested $100 million (CAD) into, represents the largest DHL Express Canadian-based gateway by volume, at 238,000 square-feet, four times larger than the previous facility that is also at Hamilton International Airport.

Memphis-based global freight transportation and logistics services provider FedEx recently announced new peak surcharges and fees for its U.S. Express and Ground services and Ground International.

Volumes and service soar to record highs.

DHL said its objective is to establish what it called an unparalleled electric Express network and make what it called a “pioneering step into a sustainable aviation future.” And it added that Evation’s Alice planes, as fully electric aircraft, enables both cargo and passenger airlines to operate a zero-emissions fleet, with DHL noting that Eviation has a 2024 target date to deliver the Alice aircraft to DHL.

Amazon has been planning and building out operations for this $1.5 billion investment over the last four years, and it said that this hub will serve as the central hub for the for the Amazon Air U.S. cargo network, “facilitating the rapid transport of customer packages across the country. And it added that this investment will result in creating 2,000 jobs, for people from various backgrounds, for positions involving load planning, management of package sortation, and robotics technology.

While the United States Senate voting in favor of passing the $1 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) this week, there comes a sense of relief that a long-awaited bill was finally passed, but more work needs to occur for everything to fall into place moving forward, according to various transportation infrastructure experts.

SEKO Logistics has said many of its manufacturer clients are “pivoting” between seafreight to airfreight and “leveraging air capacity as an option when they can”.

Quarterly revenue—at $23.4 billion—increased 14.5% annually, and adjusted earnings per share—at $3.06—saw a 43.7% annual gain, topping Wall Street expectations of $2.81. Operating profit—at $3.258 billion—rose 47.3%.

Global express delivery and logistics services provider DHL announced earlier this month that it is spending more than $360 million between 2020-2022, in an initiative focused on building new and expanding existing facilities in the America’s region, spanning the United States, Canada, Mexico, South and Central America and the Caribbean, coupled with investing millions of dollars into its Americas air network, for things like the introduction of new direct flight routes.

Air cargo continues steady climb in volumes, rates.

Entitled the “Post-Covid Indicator,” Flexport said that this report leverages the company’s copious amount of data related to the movement of merchandise through the global logistics system as input, while not having as much of what it called a lag compared to government data and statistics. And it explained that is methodology based on an analysis of correlations between detailed shipping data and national consumption behavior.

High demand for cargo space created capacity constraints and consequential high rates over the past year on a majority of lanes. And while it appears the height of the pandemic crisis is in the rear view, shippers most likely won’t see relief from elevated rates until demand and available capacity level out.

Global airlines are scrambling to meet the gap between cargo demand and available lift by all means possible.