laudio Silva is President and CEO at GSA startup CargoEssence, which was launched almost one year ago in Miami in November 2011, after he served a decade with Fast Air and 17 years leading the growth of Lan Cargo in North America and Asia, Claudio launched CargoEssence.
     Today, busy with GSA activity in North, Central, and South America, Claudio surveys the current scene in air cargo and notes the “uncertainty and volatility in a widespread geographic area.”
     “The European and North American public debt situation and unemployment affect consumption and buying power of ordinary people, and also the drive and willingness of companies to invest.
     “Lack of demand has resulted in slow inventory rotation, which in turn has slowed the demand for air transportation of products.
     “In addition to the lack of demand, high fuel costs have impacted air cargo as a mode of transportation from the ground up.
     “So lack of demand, slow rotation of inventories, and high fuel costs (trifecta diablo) are driving many shippers to switch to ocean and only use air cargo for emergencies and marginal situations that do not occur very often.
     “There is no escaping that the air cargo market is forever linked to what happens with the world economic growth.
     “My view is that air cargo will continue being affected for at least the next two years, driven by not only the above mentioned factors but also the rising numbers in unemployment in Europe and the USA, high public debt in some developed countries, as well as the slow down of China.
     “Nevertheless there are some areas of interesting development and growth, such as Latin America and Africa.
     “South America has countries like Chile, Peru, Brazil, and Colombia among others with a very solid GDP growth, political stability, fiscal discipline, and low unemployment rates that invite investment and consumer demand.
     “For example, in Brazil one can expect a solid growth of air cargo transportation related to infrastructure investment, driven by the organization of the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games.
     “In the case of Africa, growth is also being driven in part by the natural evolution for developing infrastructure and other activity in a variety of sectors.
     “Fortunately CargoEssence, a GSA, is quite busy serving several airline clients including LAN Group, the leader in a healthy Latin America market—a part of the world that has only gotten stronger.
     “With new routes and combinations as part of the Latam Group, LAN and TAM are an exciting air cargo story unfolding.
     “We are quite busy promoting new destinations and products while investing in additional sales and service in order to be able to increase our territorial presence and coverage to better serve our freight forwarder clients, and to stay ahead of demand that is building at several South American destinations we serve.”
Geoffrey/Flossie