June 12 - "Generally, the air freight market is continuing a slow recovery - the charter business mirrors this picture," stated Richard Smith, product director for freight at charter broker Air Partner, although the future looks bright for its activities
Continued overcapacity in the scheduled sector means that demand for some charter activity has remained weak: "When demand for air freight improves more strongly, we do see opportunities for charter providers to plug capacity gaps and deliver bespoke logistics solutions to meet those needs that scheduled capacity cannot," said Smith.
"We have seen improvement in demand in the oil and gas sector; as reported, activity in the first quarter of 2014 has been good. Most of this is the emergency movement of spares and equipment to exploration and production sites in challenging territories such as Nigeria, Tanzania and offshore Morocco." Smith anticipates charter demand in the oil and gas sector to continue to grow into the second half of 2014 as high oil prices continue to encourage exploration in difficult to access and remote areas.
"We are continuing to build on the success of our bespoke Time Critical offering, and are pleased to see that the proportion handled by the freight team has increased so far this year. Most of the work that we are doing in this area is for the movement of automotive spares, aircraft components and oil and gas equipment. We expect Time Critical to continue gaining traction throughout 2014."
