While 2013 was a complicated year from a purely economic point of view, the major events contributing to this had very little impact on freight, according to Rosalyn Wilson, senior business analyst for Delcan Corporation. Her overview of the freight industry in 2013 follows.
For 2013, airlines are expected to return a global net profit of $12.9bn. This is expected to lead to a net profit of $19.7bn in 2014. Both are improvements on previous months. The upward revision reflects lower jet fuel prices over the forecast period as well as improvements to the industry's structure and efficiency. Passenger markets continue to outperform the cargo business, which remains stagnant both on volumes and revenues.
The UK must push ahead with expansion of capacity with new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick airports, according to the British International Freight Association, a trade group for UK freight forwarders and logistics services providers.
Lufthansa Cargo is now offering customers real-time consignment tracking, through the use of GSM (Global System for Mobile communications) transponders.
A position paper from the Global Air Cargo Advisory Group (GACAG) says that effective air cargo screening technologies are an essential part of a multi-layered, risk- and threat-based approach to air cargo security.
DHL Global Forwarding, the air and ocean freight unit within Deutsche Post DHL, has broken ground on a $35m facility at O'Hare International Airport, which will include 53,000 square feet of office space and 423,030 square feet of warehousing, and is expected to be the largest DHL Global Forwarding building in the U.S.
