货主承诺：危机时刻顶得上的货代可获更多货量

Forwarders that help customers through disruption can win a larger share of their freight, major air cargo buyers told TIACA’s Air Cargo Forum in Miami yesterday – but executive assurances and technology pitches need to translate into better operational service.

Executives from Veralto, Lockheed Martin, and GE Vernova said performance during a crisis influenced subsequent contract awards, with practical solutions carrying weight beyond the headline rate.

Mitch Marx, director of transportation and logistics at Veralto Corp, described how one forwarder had distinguished itself during an capacity crunch out of China.

While most of its providers introduced surcharges, one worked to protect contracted rates, offering to honour them for the volumes originally awarded, while potentially charging more for additional cargo.

“They got really creative, and so for the next year, the next negotiation, we placed an emphasis on moving as much of our volume to that freight forwarder as we could,” he said.

GE Vernova’s logistics sourcing representative said strong providers could win additional business throughout the year, including opportunities to bid for spot shipments and project cargo outside the annual tender.

But the company wanted more alternatives when disruption struck. During the Middle East conflict, too many discussions with forwarders had centred on price increases.

“It turned into how much are you willing to pay?” she said. “We’re really looking to find partners that are more willing to think outside that box.”

Mark Chadwick, president of the Global Shippers Association, stressed that loyalty did not exempt providers from competitive tenders. However, neither did failing to offer the lowest price automatically rule them out.

Past performance and the quality of the relationship influenced decisions in ways that might not appear on a procurement spreadsheet, he explained.

For forwarders seeking growth in specialist markets, the panel also identified a potential gap in the ability to handle highly regulated defence cargo.

Lucas Martin, global logistics lead at Lockheed Martin, said general cargo capacity appeared sufficient, but questioned whether enough providers had the regulatory capability to support more difficult shipments as production increased.

“When it gets to the stuff that’s really hard to move, and there’s only a certain number of people that can move it, I think we’ll see some challenges when we get to full-ramp production,” he said.

Industry experience was critical, he added. Providers that struggled typically lacked familiarity with the products or suffered communication breakdowns.

Meanwhile, the shippers questioned how much progress they were seeing in customer-facing technology.

Mr Marx said forwarders had previously promoted their systems heavily, but that activity appeared to have taken a back seat as providers concentrated on moving freight.

GE Vernova’s representative said even obtaining a basic Excel download of shipments in transit could prove difficult, whereas seven or eight years ago, providers could supply the information within minutes.

She also identified a gap between executive-level communication and the response from operational control towers when chasing individual shipments.

“The level of urgency isn’t there. The level of detail isn’t there,” she said.

Mr Martin warned that some technology proposals sought access to purchasing systems and supplier information that Lockheed Martin would not provide.

“That’s always going to be a hard pass for us,” he said. “It seems to be the technology is getting a little more intrusive.”

For Veralto, a service improvement did not necessarily mean faster transport. Predictability mattered more, particularly for consumables replenishing distribution sites.

Mr Marx said an eight-day transit could be acceptable in place of five days, provided it was consistently eight days and the business could plan accordingly.

That willingness to trade speed for consistency also extended to transport mode. Higher airfreight costs had pushed Veralto to prioritise switching suitable traffic to ocean, although working capital, inventory turnover, and product expiry dates limited its options.

Sea-air offered a compromise when the business could not accept a full ocean transit.

For forwarders, the message was that understanding those constraints – and proposing workable alternatives – could be as commercially valuable as securing the next competitive rate.