THE Covid crisis has caused economic disaster for the airline industry, losing US$200 billion, while the cargo divisions of passenger airlines and online services for freight forwarders continue to benefit, reports Jersey City's Forbes Magazine.
The big three US carriers, American, Delta, and United Cargo Divisions (UCD), all upped their cargo business while american and Delta both declared that 2021 will be record-breaking years for cargo revenue, while United has also projected strong results.
'While the airline industry has obviously faced significant disruptions over the last two years, those disruptions actually created opportunity for cargo businesses to contribute in a much bigger and more impactful way than ever before,' said Delta Cargo vp Rob Walpole.
As a result, freight forwarding digital booking took the opportunity to grow up.
The pandemic 'pushed us to transform the business at an even greater speed than we thought possible,' said Israeli entrepreneur Zvi Schreiber.
'We were waiting to digitalise air cargo for many years, (and) finally the airlines were ready to connect to us digitally.'
'It was fortunate that this happened because, during Covid, passenger aircraft were converted suddenly to cargo,' said Mr Schreiber.
During 2021, American flew 4,800 cargo-only flights, transporting more than 346 million pounds. Cargo this year included 18.5 million doses of Covid crisis vaccines to Central and South America.
UCD declared third-quarter cargo was up 84 per cent from the same period in 2019 at $519 million.
Said UCD CCO Andrew Nocella: 'Just as in previous quarters, our cargo operation again delivered a record quarter for United,'
The value of airline cargo electronic bookings on WebCargo rose from $1 million in 2019 to several hundred million in 2021.
SeaNews Turkey
The big three US carriers, American, Delta, and United Cargo Divisions (UCD), all upped their cargo business while american and Delta both declared that 2021 will be record-breaking years for cargo revenue, while United has also projected strong results.
'While the airline industry has obviously faced significant disruptions over the last two years, those disruptions actually created opportunity for cargo businesses to contribute in a much bigger and more impactful way than ever before,' said Delta Cargo vp Rob Walpole.
As a result, freight forwarding digital booking took the opportunity to grow up.
The pandemic 'pushed us to transform the business at an even greater speed than we thought possible,' said Israeli entrepreneur Zvi Schreiber.
'We were waiting to digitalise air cargo for many years, (and) finally the airlines were ready to connect to us digitally.'
'It was fortunate that this happened because, during Covid, passenger aircraft were converted suddenly to cargo,' said Mr Schreiber.
During 2021, American flew 4,800 cargo-only flights, transporting more than 346 million pounds. Cargo this year included 18.5 million doses of Covid crisis vaccines to Central and South America.
UCD declared third-quarter cargo was up 84 per cent from the same period in 2019 at $519 million.
Said UCD CCO Andrew Nocella: 'Just as in previous quarters, our cargo operation again delivered a record quarter for United,'
The value of airline cargo electronic bookings on WebCargo rose from $1 million in 2019 to several hundred million in 2021.
SeaNews Turkey