AMERICAN CARRIERS PLEASE GET BACK TO BASICS
Listen American Airlines, United and the rest, stop thinking you are integrators and as such provide a time definite premium service. Unlike UPS and FedEx, you neither have the equipment nor the facilities to now even provide an acceptable level of service to domestic and international shippers. With so much of your fleets parked up [...]
WHEN WILL THE GOOD TIMES OF INTERNATIONAL AIRFREIGHT RETURN?
In my opinion not for a long, long while. Many mature countries like the United Kingdom for instance has for many years seen a shrinking air export market. Sure until a year ago this was offset by surging imports (the bulk of which were from China) but now that the bubble has burst there, U.K. [...]
UPS THINKS IT HAS FEDEX SNOOKERED, YEAH RIGHT!
Over the years we have been supporters of both companies, but last year Pete and I decided there was no future dealing with the bureaucracy that envelopes UPS. Once upon a time many of us couldn’t trust the USPS and in fact, FedEx was born out of the gross inefficiency and unreliability of the Post [...]
THE WORLD OF AIRFREIGHT
There is talk that if trends for 2009 remain the same through summer and into fall, there will be bankruptcies galore amongst the airlines. Even though competition has been great in keeping prices down over the last twenty years, the simple fact of the matter is there are just too many airlines out there competing. Growth forecasts are being reworked and the prognosis is the world’s fleet will continue shrinking for the next five years at least as demand has irrevocably done likewise. It is not so much the tourist traffic that has impacted upon the industry, but the business traveler. We now live in an age of instant and cheap communications. Large corporations have woken up to the fact that cutting costs in executive travel has not only improved the bottom line but sales have been left totally unaffected. Airlines’ bread and butter may be the coach class traveler, but the cream came from the business and first class seats. Carriers are now working doubly hard at turning the front end of the aircraft to match the back end as they see the change in demand remaining long term rather than short term





