The growth in e-commerce and lack of capacity out of Hong Kong (HK) has led to Flexport to charter its own freighter flights from HK to Los Angeles.
The growing freight forwarder say to ease the air cargo capacity shortages, the first of the these flights is a Boeing 747-400 departing on Sunday, 19 November.
It will carry 115 tonnes, or 375 pallets of cargo, from China to the US – a high-volume route where cargo space it says is extremely limited.
Flexport says it is a major launch for the company, which entered the airfreight market in 2014 and it adds chartered freighters will become an ongoing service in 2018, opening up a new revenue stream.
Flexport says this year shippers are facing new challenges to hit holiday delivery schedules and it’s “not looking good for them”.
The forwarder says this is due the exponential growth in e-commerce, and an increase in product launches (such as the iPhone X) and an uptick in flight cancellations have created the “perfect storm” for the airfreight market, leading to an unusually high amount of capacity shortages and waiting until room frees up is not an option for most companies.
