From: David Hickmott [DHickmott@uli-atl.com]

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 10:07 AM

To: David Hickmott

Cc: David Hickmott; David Hickmott

Subject: Airfreight Market Updated (Asia - USA)

Dear Unique Customers,

With the airline market changing over the past several weeks, we wanted to provide an overview for your best understanding.

In previous years, airlines will always adjust their rates in the peak season (Aug - Dec).  However, for 2009,  the situation is quite different.   Due to the global economy downturn, the airfreight demand worldwide in 2009 had dropped significantly.  Therefore, the airlines had been streamlining their operation and long term flight cancelling by grounding their aircrafts in order to minimize the excessive capacity and huge maintenance costs of their airplanes.  At the same time, airlines have been trying to capture cargo as much as they can to fill out their capacity by offering relatively lower rates.  As a result, the airlines have been suffering huge loss in cargo operation especially in the 1st half of 2009. 

With the global economy and demand for airfreight bottoming out from mid-July and pick-up in August, the space has been getting tighter and recently, has become more critical.  Therefore, airlines had been increasing their rates since mid-August on a regular (every 4-7 days) basis.    When comparing to previous years, please note the current airline's costs are still lower than those same period last year, so the increase imposed by airlines has been more frequent and aggressive due to the following reasons:

i.         Decrease in space by airlines
ii.         Pick-up in demand (Peak)
iii.        Heavy loss in 1st half of 2009
iv.       Inventory Cycle to replenish stocks by importers
v.        Lack of provision of extra space by schedule or charter airlines

Furthermore, it is very likely the rates will be further increased later in Sep due to following reasons:

i.      Rush before National Day Holiday in China and Christmas Orders
ii.      Quarter end rush of electronic products.

Some airlines has intention to increase their rates in average between 20 - 40% while this high profile approach by airline was not seen very often in the past.   In fact, in many origins in Asia, airlines had implemented such amount of increase for the rates to US and Europe already.  At the same time that rates are increasing, it is also expected that the transit times will be longer (2-3 days additional) as there will be congestion at many of the transfer/hub airports (Taipei, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul).

If you have any large shipments (3000 kgs +) that are more than 3:1 ration of dimensional weight to gross weight or visa versa, then we are able to better mix load this type cargo in our consolidations for lower costing.  In order to obtain the best spot air market rate, we need the following information:

a) Ready date of cargo

b) Total # of master artons

c) Weight of each master carton (specified by kg or lbs)

d) Dimensions (length, width, height) of each master carton (specified by centimeters or inches)

As always, we will keep striving our best to ensure our rates are in line with the market. If any specific questions, please do not hesitate to contact your sales executive or our pricing team (atlsales@uli-atl.com). 

Thank you for your support of Unique Logistics International.  We appreciate and value your business.

Discover the "Unique" difference of logistics from Asia to USA trade! 

Best Regards

David Hickmott - Executive Vice President

ph#404-767-0500 (ext 306)

Mobile# 678-478-6604

Fax# 404-767-3319

www.uli-atl.com