The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on air travel is well-known, but most people have not paid much attention to its varied effects on the air freight business. And the effect has been very uneven.
With the virtual shutdown of manufacturing and shipping in China, a large chunk of air freight business to the U.S. and Europe went out the window. But as China begins to re-open manufacturing the cost of air freight has been rising, in part because the available space on passenger planes isn’t available because they aren’t flying, and also because some priority shipments are being diverted from sea to air transportation.
To many people’s surprise, two of the largest air carriers in the U.S. carry no passengers at all; FedEx and UPS rank #6 and #8, with well over 600 planes that have kept flying, and have taken on more cargo, again because passenger flights have been canceled by the hundreds. In the U.S., about 60% of domestic air cargo goes on passenger flights.
In an unusual move, a few of the passenger airlines, particularly American, have flown special all-cargo flights to move critical medical supplies and equipment for the U.S. military in Europe along with communications equipment. There may be more flights, on idled wide-body planes if demand continues. American also flew a load of Covid-19 test kits from Raleigh-Durham to Chicago using a 737. Prior to this week, American hadn’t flown an all-freight flight since it retired its 747 freighters in 1984.
Meanwhile. freight industry sources are offering advice on getting good shipped, especially from China—take whatever space is available and try to fill it; don’t wait for your whole order to be finished before shipping, and expect to pay more.
