Emirates takes e-freight lead

EMIRATES Airline has stolen Cathay Pacific’s ‘e’-crown in the e-freight race, IATA figures show.
It is now ranked as the carrier that operates the most eAWB shipments, according to the latest IATA top-10 league table.  
In other moves, Korean Air has supplanted SIA in third place, KLM has moved up to the fifth, while Dragonair has dropped to sixth.
IAG-British Airways has made progress from eighth to seventh but Delta has dropped to eighth.
Air France and Qantas remain at nine and 10, respectively.
Among the forwarders, Agility has made the biggest improvement in eAWB volumes, jumping from 15^th position into the top 10 behind SDV Group, which remains at number nine. 
DHL Global Forwarding, Schenker, Expeditors Group and Kuehne+ Nagel have maintained their positions as number one, two, five and six, respectively.
Panalpina has grabbed the number three slot, while DHL International has dropped to number four. TNT has to make do with eighth position after being pushed out of seventh place by UPS.
IATA’s e-target for 2014 is 22 per cent – e-AWB penetration was at 12.3 per cent for both December and January.
At the tail end of last year, during the IATA Cargo Media Day, Des Vertannes, IATA’s head of cargo, stressed the importance of e-freight for the industry.
“People will always have a choice. I think it always comes down to those who are providing a value proposition and those who are not.
“That is the challenge we [the air cargo industry] are facing. We want to make sure that whatever we do today carries value ultimately to the end user. We have to get people agreeing that this a common purpose, a common objective.”