Transpacific trade – follow my lead
All eyes on the next move
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Forwarders preventing direct relationships forming between shippers and air cargo carriers stand accused of hindering greater efficiencies in the supply chain. Last week, at TIACA’s executive summit in Dallas, a leading shipper called for open, tripartite dialogue and jointly optimised processes.
“Logistics service providers (LSPs) have become a big wet blanket around the carriers but if we sit down together, we can explain where we are going,” said Robert Mellin, head of distribution logistics at Ericsson. “We want to innovate with ...
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steven I
April 23, 2013 at 9:46 pmIn my opinion, transparency is the key and the correct way to go in today’s world. As we all know carriers and forwarders will tend to oversell on their own merit but together could provide the balance/transparency that is being sought.
The maritime industry will agree that air freight has many more moving parts than theirs. Just compare marine customs port count and airport customs count as well as their equipment servicing the custom points.
This airline/forwarder protocol has existed from the very beginning. Airlines approaching shippers directly was and is still considered for the most part “backselling”. The culture of this relationship exists for the most part but under different terminologies. Thousands of tons are contractually commited on a regional and global basis annually by forwarders to airlines.
Today that is not necessarily the case but it will take inspired discussions to establish clarity/transparency and that need should be led by the customer or in conjunction with a major player from the forwarding industry.
As far as addressing the preferable vessel transit times you now include niche carriers and possible extraordinary service issues that will generate more than just a nominal fee if this service is possible.