Intra Europe demand has been strong for HAE Group despite Brexit’s best efforts, according to John Ward, director of UK & Ireland.
Ward tells Air Cargo Week that business is up 10-15% year-on-year with the UK and Ireland offices working with agents in mainland Europe. The key trade lanes are North America, Africa and the Middle East.
From Europe, through a partner network, the demand is to the Middle East and Africa, and project business.
He comments: “The current Brexit uncertainty has led to an amount of pent up demand that has not been released as yet, however, on intra-European cargo demand has remained strong.”
HAE Group advertises itself as a multi-platform service provider, and customers in the European Union are offered transit services via the UK including interline, screening/handling and customs services.
Ward says: “HAE’s edge is that customers can transit cargo through our facilities, have them rescreened and then delivered back to UK based airlines.”
Customers are offered HAE’s flagship GSSA services business, which is facilitated where clients do not have partner agents or third party service providers for the whole supply chain.
Ward says HAE is also a specialist in off-network activity, adding additional services to airline partners.
He says: “We also constantly review pricing and available capacity with our airline partners to try to make sure they are the carrier of choice for every shipment we can – we can do this through our bespoke web portal, which allows for dynamic pricing in conjunction with the carrier.”
HAE Group has offices in the UK and Ireland but is looking to grow. Ward tells Air Cargo Week: “We have a couple of potential acquisition targets under review in the Benelux area which is a useful hub for our brokerage type activity and gives us an ability to connect to most of the major EU gateways.”
There are challenges in the European market, but HAE Group is always looking to overcome them.
Ward says: “The ad-hoc nature of much of the general cargo means that dynamic pricing and current available capacity to meet demand will be the biggest challenge. This is also the biggest opportunity. The GSSA model can be a very manual process when it comes to the sale so our strategy is to automate and connect the various parties together.”
