The benefits of airfreighting for exporters

Transporting products by air is an expensive exercise, but some commodities wouldn't become exports without this method. Here's why some exporters learn to fly.

It sounds like a jetsetter's lifestyle. One morning you're enjoying an early paddle in the waters off the coast of sunny Queensland and before you know it, you're at your dinner date in Dubai. It's possible, of course, with an afternoon flight and time difference working in your favour, although most seafood cargo wouldn't necessarily look on the dinner date with any favour.

Seafood is just one Australian commodity that benefits from the rapidity of air transport. Others, such as flowers, meat, fruit and vegetables, are also frequent flyers. The trait that all these products have in common is their relatively short shelf life, which often means that the quicker they make it to market—wherever that is in the world—the higher the price they’ll fetch.

The distance between Australia and most of its fresh food markets makes airfreight doubly important. While cargo on a train from China to Germany will beat a cargo ship from Australia to the same destination, airfreighting is one leveller that helps Australian producers stay attractive for customers, even after sacrificing price competitiveness.

When time is money, the higher cost is worth it to retain quality, says Craig Templeman, executive officer of the Airfreight Council of Queensland (AFCQ). "Air is expensive, let's face it, but it's there for high value, time-sensitive products. With perishables, time is of the essence and shelf life is obviously better with airfreight. The extra hours—not even days—can give you added extra high yield revenue, for example, at restaurants.

"We actually enjoy relatively low airfreight rates out of Australia. From Europe inbound it's a different story. The strong Aussie dollar and drought tend to cloud things, but exporters don't know how lucky they are."

Industry associations like the AFCQ focus on all airfreight issues, from ensuring that growers, producers and exporters are catered for by the airfreight carriers, to working with the airlines to make certain they have the right infrastructure and conditions to operate at their optimum. Overall, these associations work to improve the airfreight environment for the industry as a whole.

Ready to launch

If you're an exporter (or potential exporter) thinking of sending your product by air, there are three main areas you'll need to examine before your product leaves the runway. The first is to understand your product and find suitable packaging for it, if only because you'll save some money on space when your product is efficiently packed.

Many fruits need to be packaged correctly to avoid bruising, which may involve special foam cladding or custom-sized boxes. And temperature is an important factor, with cool and dry storage conditions suiting most other perishable exports like flowers, vegetables, meat and seafood. If transporting livestock or live seafood, you may need to consider animal safety and the regulations that govern animals in transit.

"Australian exporters are very good at retaining product integrity, looking after the product," says Templeman. "We have some pretty sophisticated packaging companies. If you tell them what your product is, they can come up with something to put it in; we invented the thermal blanket. There are some wonderfully innovative things happening with packaging, product temperature-wise, and with data logging."

Quarantine is another issue agricultural and horticultural exporters will need to understand, both the quarantine laws of this country and those of the destination country. Some restrictions may apply to the type of product you're trying to export, for example some species of native plants, or the quantity of product you're trying to export. And of course it's wise to make sure your product is acceptable at the destination country as well, so the flight isn't in vain. Needless to say, there's a fair bit of paperwork involved at both ends, which is where a freight forwarder steps in.