DSV’s own-controlled capacity, focused on freighter-friendly airports, has developed significantly in the last 18 months and has been ‘a gamechanger, under these extraordinary and uncertain market conditions’, says Mads Ravn, DSV vice president and head of the DSV Air Charter Network
DSV’s air freight services have been developed quite significantly in the last 1.5 years to support and accommodate the demand from our customers.
We have expanded our own controlled charter network with a focus on alternative or freighter friendly airports to the extent possible. This has offered our clients more flexibility, some relief on recovery times and added capacity to key markets where capacity continue to be a constraint. We will continue down this path this year and add new routes including our latest dedicated 747F from Singapore to Los Angeles and an additional two rotations to and from Hong Kong.
We have continued to build on our relatively unique setup with core air freight hubs in smaller and less-congested airports across all major regions. It has been a gamechanger for the service and solutions we have been able to deliver to our customers under these extraordinary and uncertain market conditions. Adding to this, DSV’s focus on a dedicated, swift and agile ground handling setup has been key for us. In many instances, it has substantially reduced the transition time from unloading the airplane to loading the cargo on trucks, trains etc.
Expectations for 2022
We see another strong year ahead for air freight with demand outpacing capacity all year. The delays on ocean freight will result in continued conversions to air freight of commodities that normally would not fly. With passenger belly capacity continuing to be pushed out, we do not anticipate much relief this year – especially not on the major air lanes to and from strategic hubs in Asia. It will again be a year that will rely on all freighter capacity available, with recovery closely tied to the amount of Covid-19 incidents and derived restrictions. We do believe that carriers and forwarders alike will have to seek alternatives to the bottlenecks in many of our major airports that are beyond capacity, which again favours DSV’s setup with hubs in minor airports.
