Air freight forwarders have pointed out that since Thanksgiving has passed, the volume of goods that need to be shipped in December has gradually decreased. In addition, due to the previous incident of counterfeit goods, US Customs has prohibited the use of postal parcels for cross-border e-commerce goods from China. The freight rate of goods from the West Coast of the United States has dropped from $320NTD per kilogram on Double Eleven to about $255NTD, a drop of nearly 20%. Although it is difficult to grasp, it has been estimated that the peak season of next year will begin in mid-January before the Lunar New Year, and freight rates will rise again.
Although the market freight rate has fallen, it is still at a high level. The industry pointed out that in previous years, the freight rate for shipping from Taiwan to the United States and West was less than $100NTD. Now it can be $255NTD, which is more than 2.5 times the price. The Chinese air cargo market has become weaker in the north, while it is still very prosperous in the south. The freight rate per kilogram is still $8-10 Yuan, which is three times the price of $3 Yuan in previous years. This year’s Double Eleven domestic sales market in mainland China is very good, but international shipments are not very prosperous, mainly due to the ban on postal parcels by the U.S. Customs, the re-exported goods that Taiwan could get is estimated to be reduced by 10% to 15%, and the industry estimates that there will be a chance to release this ban next year.
The industry believes that it is difficult to estimate the upcoming vaccine transportation. Since the vaccine is small in size, it will not take up too much space. However, because the dry ice required for the delivery is classified as Class 9 dangerous goods, an all-cargo plane can only hold 200~400kg of dry ice, and these dry ice can only be used for a long-distance transportation of about 50kg of vaccines along the way, unless a terminal stops to add dry ice.
Passenger aircraft will have stricter restrictions on the loading of dry ice. Dry ice is solid carbon dioxide, and inhalation will cause comas. Therefore, it is estimated that vaccine delivery may avoid the use of passenger aircrafts. Many technical problems still need to be solved, but once the vaccine is shipped, it will also be delegated out to general cargo. In addition, if the vaccine is used well, it will also speed up the recovery of passenger traffic. With the increase of passenger flights, the cargo space provided by the market will also increase, which will cause the freight rate to start to fall.
The air cargo contracting industry, which is currently making a budget for next year, believes that there are too many variables for next year, and it is difficult to create an appropriate budget. The speed of vaccine production and the effect of use remain to be seen. In addition, the threshold for vaccine delivery is high, and most of the freight contracting industry does not operate refrigerated container transportation, so there is no opportunity to intervene in vaccine delivery. It can only be seen if the vaccine delivery is crowded into the space, allowing the industry to gain indirect benefits.