FedEx boss sees global shift for parcels towards ships and ports and away from aircraft
June 22, 2012
The shift towards parcels could shield container-truck traffic at Australian ports in the face of softening global trade, if a prediction from FedEx CEO Fred Smith is born out here.
Speaking at an annual results conference call in which he also noted that a cost reduction program would be made public in October, Smith identified a global trend from airfreight to ships, driven by the demand for cheaper transport services in tough economic times.
The analysis came after FedEx saw sinking international priority airfreight performance accelerate from 1 percent to 3 percent in its last two financial quarters.
This was occurring in airport-airport freight but there was no reduction in parcel volumes.
In major Australian ports, while there may be fluctuations, the trend has been for an average yearly container traffic growth of more than 5 percent.
For Port Botany, monthly full import container trade has been slightly above or below volumes last year, while trending towards being higher than last year for full export containers.
Though April container traffic was down 1.3 percent this April, the year to April was up 1.7 percent.
Last month, Port of Brisbane reported throughput of 1 million containers in a 12 month period for the first time.
“This caps off a decade of solid growth in container trade for the Port of Brisbane, with a compound annual growth rate of 8 percent,” the ports owning firm’s CEO, Russell Smith, says.
Despite the global economic hit of recent years, the country’s biggest container port, Melbourne continues to see sustained growth, with 2011 up 6.6 percent on 2010.
Fremantle Port expect base rate growth of 5.5 percent to lead to a doubling of throughput before 2025.
