What Do We Do Every Day as Freight Forwarders Specializing in Air Freight to Middle East?
What do you freight forwarders do all day long? Let’s take a real example and walk through it step by step. Last month, Mr. Ge in Shenzhen needed to send a batch of petroleum catalysts to Dubai via air freight to UAE. The delivery time he promised his customer was only one week, which was quite urgent. To meet the order’s time limit, Mr. Ge had to arrange air freight to UAE.
In Shenzhen, there are airlines like EK, CA, TK, CZ that fly directly to UAE. Direct flights are the fastest, but they are really expensive. The second option is transit flights: first fly to another destination, then transfer to DXB in UAE. It’s a bit slower, with a delay of 2 to 3 days, but it can still meet the customer’s needs. And the freight cost may be 1/3 to 1/2 cheaper.
Of course, Mr. Ge could also choose airlines like UPS. But its capacity is uncertain. It will only arrange your goods when there is no delivery cargo, which means the timeliness is unstable. However, its freight cost is relatively very cheap.
In this case, considering the need to guarantee timeliness, Mr. Ge contacted us. We confirmed his needs and helped him get in touch with the appropriate airline. Mr. Ge only needed to tell us when and where to pick up how much goods in Shenzhen, the deadline for delivery, a budget (about how much he wanted the freight to be below), the specific location in DXB of UAE to deliver to, and who to hand over the goods to for signature.
I would take care of everything for Mr. Ge throughout the process. So according to the needs of our shippers, freight forwarders choose airlines that meet the requirements. For example, we used CA to fly from Shenzhen to Beijing, then transfer to UAE. For the shipper, after his goods are produced in the Shenzhen factory, if he still needs the freight forwarder to help pick up the goods, we can also help repack them if necessary.
This may seem ordinary, but it’s worth emphasizing. There are 60,000 freight forwarding companies in Shenzhen, and most of them don’t have their own truck fleets. They only rent trucks temporarily when they have orders. Usually, there’s no problem, but when it comes to holidays and air freight peaks, it will cause delays, and even fail to pick up the goods on time. So sometimes, the key to whether a shipment of air freight to UAE can be sent smoothly is whether the freight forwarder can dispatch a truck to pick up the goods in time!
However, our domestic logistics side has its own transport fleet, which can be independently dispatched and completely unaffected by the market. It takes an average of 6 to 8 hours to pick up goods from the factory warehouse to the airport, which is indeed one of our core strengths.
Second, if Mr. Ge needed us to coordinate and find a suitable customs broker for customs declaration and export, we would also assist him. If the customer has their own customs declaration documents, that’s fine. If not, we would make a set of customs declaration documents for Mr. Ge to facilitate the export release by Chinese customs. After the release, we would book a space with CA at the same time. All these are completed by the freight forwarder at the Shenzhen export port to ensure the goods board the plane smoothly. The freight forwarder will track the shipment throughout the process, inform Mr. Ge in a timely manner when it arrives at DXB in UAE, and feedback any intermediate links and transit time.
After arriving at the destination port, we will continue to track the shipment, from unloading it from the plane to deconsolidation and distribution. If the shipper says, “My customer in DXB doesn’t know much about this either. So after you transport the goods to Dubai, I’ll give you his address at the destination port. I’ll provide any information you need, and you need to help me with the import customs declaration in Dubai.” As a freight forwarder, we can connect the customs brokers at the destination port. We help the shipper track the customs clearance and duty payment at the destination port as soon as possible. After the customs declaration, import and duty payment are all completed, Dubai Customs will release the goods. Then we will ask the local cooperative trucking company to arrange a suitable vehicle to deliver the goods to the designated location at the designated time and hand them over to the consignee.
So from this perspective, as a third-party logistics company, we help customers complete all the related matters from shipping to receiving the goods.