Set course for Baghdad – but it's costly and challenging for air freight shippers

Aramex Iraq freight operation leader Samer Ali and customs broker Mahdi Merza

Steep rates and jacked-up insurance premiums make Baghdad-bound airfreight a costly enterprise, with excessive bureaucracy and unwieldy, old-fashioned clearance processes, leaving forwarders struggling to provide decent services.

“Insuring freight shipments is expensive and traders spend huge amounts of money on both this and freight costs, so they should be expecting a good service, but they’re actually paying a high price for a weak service,” Aramex’s Iraq freight operation leader, Samer Ali, told The Loadstar.

“But our customers know the whole picture, so the ...