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Air freight forwarders in Bangladesh battle with capacity squeeze
AIR FREIGHT forwarders in Bangladesh have been struggling to handle the country's imports and exports amid capacity constraints, exacerbated by the diversion for Hajj operations of Biman Bangladesh Airline's wide body aircrafts which reduced available capacity for exports.
"Export containers could not be loaded on feeder vessels for almost 10 days because of huge pile-up of import containers. As a result, many shipments earlier destined for different seaports of the world had to be converted to air to meet buyers' deadline," said Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association (BAFFA) spokesman Nurul Amin.
The present crisis worsened after the nine-day Eid-ul-Fitr holidays created a logjam, Mr Amin was cited as saying in a report by the Financial Express in Dhaka.
Mr Amin, who is also managing director of Tower Freight Logistics Ltd, said even before the present predicament, air freight capacity from Bangladesh had dropped due to the cancellation last month of Lufthansa's weekly freighter operation from Dhaka, while some other airlines had either reduced, re-routed or changed aircraft or frequencies.
These measures have resulted in 400 tonnes of weekly capacity being taken out of the market.
At the same time, increases in demand for air freight from China and their capability to pay high freight charges, has prompted airlines to give priority to those shipments from their hubs.
Industry insiders warned that the present capacity situation may continue until mid-October. Again, there could be another brief peak in November ahead of Christmas.
"Export containers could not be loaded on feeder vessels for almost 10 days because of huge pile-up of import containers. As a result, many shipments earlier destined for different seaports of the world had to be converted to air to meet buyers' deadline," said Bangladesh Freight Forwarders Association (BAFFA) spokesman Nurul Amin.
The present crisis worsened after the nine-day Eid-ul-Fitr holidays created a logjam, Mr Amin was cited as saying in a report by the Financial Express in Dhaka.
Mr Amin, who is also managing director of Tower Freight Logistics Ltd, said even before the present predicament, air freight capacity from Bangladesh had dropped due to the cancellation last month of Lufthansa's weekly freighter operation from Dhaka, while some other airlines had either reduced, re-routed or changed aircraft or frequencies.
These measures have resulted in 400 tonnes of weekly capacity being taken out of the market.
At the same time, increases in demand for air freight from China and their capability to pay high freight charges, has prompted airlines to give priority to those shipments from their hubs.
Industry insiders warned that the present capacity situation may continue until mid-October. Again, there could be another brief peak in November ahead of Christmas.
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