A pallet of unprotected cargo on an airport tarmac with an outside temperature of 21\u00b0C can quickly reach tempera\u00adtures above 55\u00b0 C. At that point, an egg can fry in about 20 minutes. Now just image if that pallet contained tempera\u00adture-sensitive pharmaceutical goods, or some other high-value perishable. Costs incurred by the top ten pharmaceutical companies due to temperature excur\u00adsions are in the billions, according to pharma logistics firm CargoSense. It\u2019s easy to see that a delay of even a few minutes can quickly spell disaster and strike a severe blow to a shipper\u2019s bot\u00adtom line.
\nBecause of the increasingly impor\u00adtant role they play in the transfer of high-value cargo, ground handlers are no longer considered the bottom-feed\u00aders of the air transport sector. The Cen\u00adter for Aviation reported that, at the end of 2014, the global airport ground handling business is valued at US$80 to $100 billion per year. This business, however, is being run by fewer compa\u00adnies each year.
\nSeveral years ago, most cargo car\u00adriers ran their own ground handling fa\u00adcilities, built and broke down pallets, and loaded and unloaded their own planes. But after the recession follow\u00ading 9\/11, when many airlines were seek\u00ading ways to cut costs, they outsourced much of this work to outside agents and contractors, which served multiple carriers in one facility. There are still a number of small, long-established in\u00addependent family firms that have se\u00adcured their reputations at one airport or a small number of airports world\u00adwide, but the trend of mergers and ac\u00adquisitions continues unabated today.
\nFor instance, in the past year, Worldwide Flight Services (WFS), said to be perhaps the largest ground handler in the world, was acquired by Los Angeles-based Platinum Equity in the spring of 2015. Then, in November 2015, Fraport sold 51 percent of Fra\u00adport Cargo Services at Frankfurt Air\u00adport to WFS, which was then renamed Frankfurt Cargo Services. Today, WFS is in the process of acquiring Consoli\u00addated Aviation Services (CAS), which is the largest cargo handler in the United States, serving more than 250 carri\u00aders. It\u2019s clear to see that WFS is moving toward ground handling domination.
\nOther top cargo ground handling firms include Swissport \u2013 now in 48 countries, handling roughly 4 million tonnes of cargo each year \u2013 and Dubai-based dnata, which now handles all the cargo at Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport, and about 103 other hubs worldwide.
\nFor today\u2019s large ground handlers, these deals and partnerships are nec\u00adessary to increase economies of scale for ground handling operations and in\u00adcrease the industry\u2019s slim profit mar\u00adgins. But according to some forwarders, the rash of mega-mergers in the indus\u00adtry is beginning to affect performance.
\nDarren Walton, the branch man\u00adager for forwarder EMO Trans at Chi\u00adcago O\u2019Hare Airport, said consolidation is generally not good for the industry. Forwarders, he said, need to know that their shipments are being handled by competent hands and that tendered cargo will not be damaged or contami\u00adnated along the journey. In this climate, that\u2019s not so easy.
\n\u201cCompetition is good, it keeps people on their toes and drives a free market,\u201d Walton said. But the small ground handlers \u201cneed to speak up\u201d to make sure their voices are heard. \u201cIf these companies are being bought by private equity firms, the focus is on the shareholder not the customer.
\nConsolidations are a fact of life in the ground handling industry, but the jury is still out on whether they have helped or hindered business for the forwarding community. Are these mergers adding value to cargo opera\u00adtions or sacrificing service for profits?
\nSource: aircargoworld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A pallet of unprotected cargo on an airport tarmac with an outside temperature of 21\u00b0C can quickly reach tempera\u00adtures above 55\u00b0 C. At that point, an egg can fry in about 20 minutes. Now just image if that pallet contained tempera\u00adture-sensitive pharmaceutical goods, or some other high-value perishable. Costs incurred by the top ten pharmaceutical[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1167,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-1166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-airport-code"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.actlogistics.vn\/vn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}