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Qantas Freight denies shipper claims of too little perishable space

QANTAS Freight has dismissed claims from fruit and vegetable exporters that there is insufficient freighter capacity out of Australia, resulting in heavy loss of revenue.

The carrier's executive manager Alison Webster told London's Loadstar: "At this stage, we are not at the point of needing additional freighter services. If we see consistent demand we will look to adjust our freighter schedule."

Last week, fruit and vegetable exporters claimed the high demand for their products from China was not matched by available air freight capacity and they were unable to move enough of their product.

But Ms Webster noted that the growers were limited by seasonality. "Many producers of perishable goods have short growing seasons and therefore call on our services a few weeks a year, particularly around Christmas," she said.

"Qantas Freight works with these customers to secure capacity, taking into consideration that availability tightens up around the peak holiday season," she said.

One cherry company executive told Reuters that the short growing season meant the company didn't have "much bargaining power", while another claimed producers were losing out on up to A$100 million (US$76 million) in potential sales to Asia.

Qantas operates six freighter services a week to Shanghai, Chongqing, Hong Kong and Bangkok, along with belly capacity on Jetstar and Qantas passenger aircraft.

"In January 2017, we will supplement our network with cargo capacity on the new daily Qantas services from Sydney to Beijing," Ms Webster said.

At the end of last month, Australia Post Group and Qantas Freight signed the largest air freight contract in Australia - a five-year deal worth A$500 million, covering 12,000 tonnes of international mail and air freight each year.