AMI centralises US carrier purchasing

In her new post, Olga will handle all negotiations with airlines, establishing prices and corporate contracts across the entire USA. She will work closely with the recently-established AMI Quotation Desks in Dallas, Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles, and focus on opening up new carrier relationships and route options in order to expand the service offering to AMI customers.

Olga will also manage and coordinate all marketing activity for AMI USA, monitoring customer demand in each region and ensuring the provision of suitable AMI products.

Olga’s air cargo career has included working with airlines and GSAs, providing her with valuable insight into the service needs of freight forwarders. Says Olga: “I am delighted to join AMI’s already strong team in North America. I believe this new position will support AMI’s drive to become even more competitive in its existing markets, and develop its presence in new areas. AMI’s potential around the world is enormous.”

About freight wholesaling
“Airfreight wholesaling” is the process by which freight agents can purchase space through an intermediary (“wholesaler”), generally at lower rates than are offered by the airline or shipping line itself. In airfreight, this is achieved either:

• by the wholesaler consolidating many small shipments into a single booking, taking advantage of the lower rate per kilo offered by airlines for larger shipments, and then effectively sharing the resultant saving with its customers in the form of lower rates; or
• by combining dense cargo and volume cargo on the same airline pallet, in order to maximise the  chargeable capacity of the pallet without exceeding its physical weight limit. As most airfreight is “volume” (that is, its volume is greater than the usual airline conversion ratio of 6000cc per kilo) it is charged by volume rather than weight. Skillful combination of dense and volume cargo can reduce the average volume:weight ratio of cargo on the pallet, resulting in more capacity, and a lower cost per kilo – part of which saving is then passed back to the wholesaler’s customers.

Consolidated airfreight shipments also benefit from lower minimum charges than those imposed by airlines. Normal airline minimum charges can often make a small shipment prohibitively expensive.

In ocean freight, savings are generally achieved by a consolidator combining many smaller shipments into larger volumes, and loading these into full containers for presentation to the shipping line. The full container load (FCL) rate thus achieved represents a saving on the “loose” or LCL (less-than-container-load) rate offered by the line, and much of the difference is passed back to the exporting agent in the form of lower rates.

Quelle: AMI – Air Menzies International