- AVIAREPS is expanding its presence across Southeast and East Asia, targeting emerging export hubs like Vietnam and Cambodia to align with shifting airfreight demand and de-risked trade flows from China.
- The company leverages offline carriers, interline partnerships, and tailored routing strategies to match secondary capacity with appropriate product types and transit timelines, focusing on flexibility over express speed alone.
- Digital booking platforms are treated as partners rather than competitors, with AVIAREPS emphasising local offices, human expertise, and training to maintain client relationships and operational effectiveness.
Trade lanes are fragmenting, supply chains are being rethought, and cargo is quietly moving away from once-dominant hubs. For AVIAREPS, this moment isn’t a disruption—it’s a roadmap. Southeast Asia’s growing role in global manufacturing and exports is reshaping airfreight demand, and the global GSA is placing its bets on proximity and local knowledge, not just scale.
“Southeast Asia is very fast-developing, especially with its new airport in Phnom Penh,” said Frederick Overton, AVIAREPS Group’s global head of cargo, speaking from the TLAC Southeast Asia conference. “We’ve just opened our office in Cambodia earlier in the year and we’ve had lots of really exciting talks with customers about doing air exports and representing them.”
The company’s presence now spans Thailand, Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Cambodia—complemented by coverage in East Asia including Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. That regional footprint isn’t just for show. It’s part of a deliberate strategy to meet demand where it’s shifting.
“We’ve seen significant trade volumes increasing out of some of these Southeast Asian markets as maybe some countries de-risk from Chinese exports,” Overton explained. “Particularly out of countries like Vietnam and Cambodia, where we’re seeing a particular surge of cargo exports at the moment.”
Offline carriers and patchwork solutions
One of AVIAREPS’ more unusual strengths is its work with offline carriers—airlines with no direct capacity in a given market. This model depends heavily on creative routing, interline partnerships, and cargo that can afford longer lead times.
“We do represent some offline carriers,” Overton said. “So it’s about working with interline partnerships as well as GSAs, and setting up that first-leg capacity to then best serve some of the maybe underutilised capacity that might be going from some of our contracted carriers out of maybe slightly less popular cargo airports.”
In practical terms, that means tailoring the strategy based on product type and urgency. “By joining these dots, we can ultimately link the supply chains, especially for some maybe less urgent goods. So like textiles or things that can move under maybe a five-to-seven-day transit instead of under that one-to-two-day transit for maybe… some more high-tech and machinery-type items that are being exported from the region.”
This nuance is often overlooked in a sector focused on express transit and digital efficiency. But for Overton, the flexibility to match secondary capacity with appropriate demand is key to unlocking value.
Overton’s remit is global, and so is AVIAREPS’ expansion trajectory. “When I started, we were only partnered with, I think, two airlines for cargo,” he said. “But now we’re partnered with nine airlines for cargo.” That growth has come in just over a year.
“I think my plan for the next year is to double that. I’d like to get to 20 by this time next year,” he added.
Digital platforms as partners, not threats
As digital booking tools gain ground, there’s a common narrative that GSAs may become obsolete. Overton strongly disagrees.
“It’s very important to partner with the key online platforms: WebCargo, cargo.one, CargoAI and CargoBooking,” he said. “We need to treat them more as a collaboration and a partnership rather than thinking that they’re working against the GSA or something.”
That human focus is not just a slogan—it’s a challenge. “It’s about training and bringing cargo people into some of these offices where maybe we’re less developed in cargo,” Overton said. “And that’s key, right? We’re a people’s business.”
“You know, each market has its different kinds of potentials, different strategies, and different dynamics,” he said. “Having our offices locally—all fully owned under the AVIAREPS company—allows us to best deliver for our clients.”
