On an aircraft, certain parts, like wing surfaces and engine fan blades, are absolutely critical pieces of equipment. The same might be said about a professional soccer player and his shoes. If those shoes don\u2019t make the trip, the player is sidelined.
\nThis scenario occurred recently when a key player of the French National Football Team was preparing for an important match in Paris when he realized his customized shoes were missing the day before kickoff. Undaunted, the team contacted time:matters, a logistics firm specializing in urgent shipments, and arranged for a new pair of shoes to be shipped from the manufacturer in Nuremberg to the Munich Airport. After an hour dealing with export procedures, the shoes were loaded onto the next flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, where they underwent another 45 minutes of import handling. From there, a courier delivered the parcel to the training facility at the Centre National du Football.
\nWith time:matters\u2019 Sameday Air service, the entire process took less than eight hours. The player received his customized shoes in time and he was able to play the match the next day. And the French National Team won.
\nIn an increasingly interconnected world, where some regular airfreight shipments must be delivered at a specific time, there are bound to be hiccups like these in every supply chain. Instead of shoes, a machine part may need replacing to keep a factory running, or an accident may threaten the delivery of perishable goods. For these moments that involve time-critical, short-haul air service, carriers and forwarders are now seeing the value in providing a premium backup option for desperate shippers.
\nIt\u2019s no surprise, then, that Lufthansa Cargo, last summer, acquired the 51 percent of time:matters that it did not already own. This marked a return to its original fold for the smaller company, which Lufthansa had spun off in 2002, selling 51 percent to an investment firm.
\nLufthansa was hardly alone. In April 2016, Qatar Airways unveiled a bespoke Premium Services product, divided into QR Gold for priority uplift with late booking, and QR Platinum for guaranteed next-flight delivery for items under 300 kilograms, and priority confirmation for larger items. Both levels feature top boarding priority and rapid handling, short and flexible close-outs, quick and dedicated ramp transfers for transit shipments and retrieval within 90 minutes at destination. In the fall of 2016, IAG Cargo launched Critical, an emergency service for urgent shipments that require shorter transit times than express traffic. The new offering sits at the top of the carrier\u2019s portfolio, with an ironclad paramount loading priority. The Critical product is \u201cnon-offloadable,\u201d declared Daniel Johnson, IAG\u2019s global products manager. The airline describes it as \u201cbespoke to the emergency shipment market, exclusively designed for time-urgent shipments, which often have significant cost implications if they don\u2019t arrive on time.\u201d
\nForwarders also have the time-critical market on their radar. In September, DHL Global Forwarding (DHL-GF, the forwarding arm of Deutsche Post-DHL) introduced SameDay Speedline, branded a \u201cmission-critical solution for emergency shipments.\u201d Monitored door-to-door from \u201cContact Centers\u201d in the United States, Singapore and Ireland, the service is built on best-flight-out options and carries pledges to deliver quotations from dedicated service representatives within 60 minutes and collection of the shipment inside of 120 minutes.
\nCarriers and forwarders alike said the premiums these services command represent a promising new revenue stream \u2013 one that continues to grow. \u201cUntil now we have not had a product that fully satisfies this unique need, with short cut-off times and non-off loadable status,\u201d said IAG\u2019s commercial director, Dave Shepherd. \u201cWe can now meet the exact demands for shipments that simply must fly.\u201d
\nMore on time-sensitive services:<\/p>\n
See Sidebar on KLM\u2019s 12Send service
\nCut it close, pay a price<\/p>\n
\u00a0
\nSource: aircargoworld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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