CII sees 15 years in cargo

CONSOLIDATORS International, is celebrating its 15th anniversary by upgrading its IT system to better serve the freight forwarding community both in the US and abroad.

CII is expanding operations both at its Los Angeles office and the company’s wholly owned facilities in Atlanta and JFK.

Julian Keeling, president and chief executive officer of the company, said: “We are elevating our standards of service to better compete in an increasingly tough and even ruthless cargo environment.

“New technical, sales and operations people have been hired at our LA headquarters. We also have added staff at our offices in Atlanta and JFK. All of our offices, both in the US and abroad, now are linked to an extremely advanced and expensive, IT system that does everything but load freight aboard an aircraft”, he said.

Keeling finds the air cargo environment totally different than when CII was started 15 years ago. Competition was far less ferocious, no fuel or security surcharges existed. Airlines were far more reputable in their dealings with forwarders and were proud to carry freight, he said. “Many combination carriers now give lip service to their cargo operations, but when push comes to shove, passenger considerations always trump freight availability. Rate-wise, air cargo seems to be moving backwards. Many of the rates 15 years ago actually were higher than today when the cost of living was far less. We find a ludicrous situation where airline fuel surcharges on many lane segments actually are higher than the underlying cargo rates.”

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