Air Freight Forwarding

Air freight forwarding is a complex but surprisingly relative simple enterprise. The process of air freight forwarding is uncomplicated. Air freight forwarders pick up freight and deliver it to a consignee or the party to whom the goods are shipped for those unfamiliar with the lingo of air freight forwarding. However, the complexity of air freight forwarding exists for the forwarder and in the forwarding part of the process. In many cases, air freight forwarders do not own the equipment of employ the personnel that carry out the basic functions to pick up, sort, transport, and deliver the freight. In many instances, the pickup is carried out by one company, the transportation is handled through another, and the delivery is performed by still a different company-none of which represents the air freight forwarder. Conventional air freight forwarders create loose non-contractual partnerships with local agents to represent them at airport cities by handling the pickup and delivery services, paying them by the pound and on a per shipment basis. The same forwarders also build relationships with airlines to carry freight between cities with airports. The entire process can be complex with a great deal of cumbersome and time consuming processes that are filled with the potential for error and poor communication. Currently FedEx and UPS are the two largest air freight forward carriers in the worl

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rassment as it revolutionized the air freight forwarding industry (especially with regard to express service): There is no great mystery to the hub and spoke concept. As Smith visualized the plan, the hub would be located in a middle America location-he was thinking of Little Rock or Memphis-with spokes radiating out to Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Miami, and other cities-the far corners of the country. A package from Boston destined for the West Coast, for instance, might be flown in on the Boston spoke in a few hours to the Memphis hub, where it would be sorted and routed on the plane that had just brought in shipments from Los Angeles, and it would be aboard when that plane flew back home, arriving before dawn. In other words, Boston to Los Angeles overnight! Or vice versa. Or Atlanta to Seattle. Everything went to the hub in Memphis-and then from there on to its destination. Fred Smith thought of this system as similar to the telephone network, where all calls are connected through a central switchboard process. (Trimble 81) Of course, Fred Smith's innovations also included owning the air carriers and airport where the central hub was located which helped to greatly reduce costs from personnel to warehousing and

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