The group started its Hong Kong office in the later part of 2007, during which time it also launched its Turkey office. In February this year, it opened its Israeli office, the third leg of its focus.
“These are three key territories that enhance the Company’s growth strategy and we look forward to developing business from these regions,” Stephen J Dawkins, founder and group commercial director of Air Logistics Group, says.
“We continue to invest in quality local managers who understand the market well. On the corporate side, our financial team in Paris is able to support the local managers with bank guarantees, finance and administration. This allows the local manager to focus on what our clients need which is sales and service,” he says.
Although Hong Kong is a mature market, Air Logistics plans to use it as a platform to expand into Asia, using it as a base to look at potential acquisitions in Asia during the next 12 months. In so doing, Air Logistics will also make itself known to Asian companies.
Established in 1994, Air Logistics Group is a leading cargo GSSA and is owned by a private equity organisationthat has made significant investment to support its continued development. Air Logistics has 47 offices across 24 countries and employs almost 250 staff . In 2007, the group generated over 300,000 tonnes of cargo sales and produced revenues close to US$500 million. The Group, which is a purely cargo GSSA without a passenger or charter arm to its business, anticipates 450,000 tonnes with revenue at US$750 million this year.
Innovation and flexibility key
Dawkins says the modern day GSSA, which has to be innovative and flexible, has to focus not only on sales, but also on a broad range of value added services. “As the freight revenue is being forced down due to high competition and ever increasing fuel surcharges, it is important to generate volume. This is where a company with a large network such as Air Logistics has an advantage.
“With an extensive network, we can use synergies across the Group, for example by developing opportunities to feed services from other offices within our network. In addition, we are focusing on ways to help airlines reduce costs, (and) we have tremendous knowledge and expertise in trucking, handling and security. We are able to transparently provide management expertise to help airlines to control these costs and make them more understandable instead of a complex web of charges that make it hard for an airline to calculate its costs going forward,” he says.
Dawkins says that besides issuing an IATA GSSA certificate, IATA could provide better recognition of the GSSA. Air Logistics was the first GSSA in the world to be awarded with this recognition when IATA launched it in 2003.
“We feel that being part of IATA should involve input from all its members. Many airline cargo managers’ and directors’ cargo capital expenditure budgets are slashed to zero in this current climate of spiralling fuel surcharges. We are willing to make those investments for airlines which are willing to open their minds to the evolution of our cargo business,” he says.
Dawkins says there is a desperate lack of training in the GSSA business, and believes that there has to be significant focus on transparency and security during this decade.
