Shipco continues SeaAir service expansion

Shipco continues SeaAir service expansion

Ekstroem

   Shipco Transport has expanded its service combining neutral ocean and air cargo consolidations moving from Asia to Central and South America.
   With this service, less-than-containerloads travel by ocean container from Asia to Los Angeles where they are devanned. The shipments designated for air transport are then transferred to Los Angeles airport, and are either flown directly to the final destination or team-trucked to Miami where they connect with flights to South and Central America.
   'We started the service last year out of Shanghai,' said Kim Ekstroem, Shipco's senior vice president, in an interview. 'We have daily LCL departures from Shanghai to Los Angeles, and that makes for a perfect platform for a Sea Air product.'
   He added the key to operating this type service successfully is to have total control over the process.
   'We load the containers, we do the devanning, cut all the documentation, so for the forwarder this becomes a seamless product which is very easy to handle and sell,' Ekstroem said. 'We offer one simple per-kilogram rate from port of origin to airport of destination.'
   Shipco's SeaAir service has recently added Pusan, Tokyo, Taipei, Hong Kong and Shenzhen to its list of Asia origins. The average transit times from these Asian cities to South and Central America through the SeaAir service is 16 to 20 days.
   With the addition of these new origins, Shipco now offers 83 direct LCL export services to the United States and 24 directly into Los Angeles. Once the shipments are prepared for air transport they are often loaded onto daily departures.
   'Right now we see a lot of activity to Brazil and Venezuela,' Ekstroem said. 'Particularly Venezuela is interesting. There are heavy delays in the seaports of Venezuela, and we help the forwarders circumventing this by flying the last mile, so to speak.'
   The SeaAir service has become particularly popular among Shipco's forwarder customers during peak season. During this period, an air shipment from Shanghai may sit two to three days waiting for uplift to the United States. Then it may sit another couple of days at the transit point. A total transit time for an all-air shipment of 10 days during the peak season is not uncommon, Ekstroem explained.
   'This is where the SeaAir comes in,' he said. 'If you can accept an additional transit time of six to seven days, you can reduce your total transportation cost by 60 to 70 percent. There is a lot of products that cannot wait for a 50-day transit time via ocean, but certainly do not have to arrive in a few days either, and this is where SeaAir comes into the picture.'
   The SeaAir service still makes up a small portion of Shipco's total cargo volumes.
   'But if you look at it with air freight eyes, this is a lot of freight. And we are in a unique position to offer this product,' Ekstroem said. 'Shipco is a leader in the transpacific LCL import market, and Shipco has a dominant position as a neutral air freight wholesaler in the U.S. export market. It is simply a matter of connecting the two.'
   Shipco is a subsidiary of Scan-Group, an international shipping and transportation company based in Copenhagen, with more than 1,500 employees in owned offices worldwide. ' Chris Gillis