Where are the big ships in the left hand, the planes in the right hands, and the | shipping companies going? Harbor Circle

If Maersk, MEDITERRANEAN Shipping, CGM Group and Hapag-Lloyd are in the same group chat, after Maersk acquires air freight forwarders, CMA CGM sets up an air freight department and proposes large cargo aircraft, and Mediterranean Airlines considers cooperating with Lufthansa to take over the Italian state airline, Hapag-Lloyd is like pouring cold water.

Recently, Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen said at a press conference that operating airlines is not a reasonable expansion of Hapag-Lloyd's current business, and other peers may have a reason to invest in the aviation industry, but Hapag-Lloyd will not go the same path, Hapag-Lloyd is not an air transport expert, and their customers tend to regard sea and air freight as different types of services. Perhaps the most interesting part of this news is not the reason given by Rolf Habben Jansen, but the need for Hapag-Lloyd to respond to why Hapag-Lloyd is not entering the air freight field, in other words, the trend of public opinion is that a shipping company without a freighter may not be a standard shipping giant.

How did this wave of buying planes rise? To know that the price of a freighter is not cheaper than a container ship, take the four Airbus A330-200F freighters acquired by CMA CGM when it established its air freight division, which is as high as 241 million US dollars (2020 price) per freighter. Maersk's acquisition of Air Freight Forwarders Also valued at $644 million. Leaving aside the fact that shipping companies are rich enough to make high investments, the air freight business is currently popular to meet the growing demand for flexible logistics solutions from customers. Specifically, due to the surging epidemic, the supply chain congestion problem is serious; second, due to the prosperity of global online shopping, air freight demand has increased with the significant increase in cross-border e-commerce shipments, and customers have paid more attention to the timing arrangement of goods delivery. As a result, more customers are demanding alternative shipping methods. Compared with sea freight, air freight is more flexible and suitable for goods that require more flexibility, and is favored by customers who are not price-sensitive but require timeliness.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), although the cumulative loss of the global aviation industry in 2020-2022 is about US$201 billion, air cargo demand remains strong, with air cargo demand in 2021 increasing by 6.9% compared with 2019 (pre-pandemic), and capacity in 2021 (measured in available freight tonne-kilometers, or "ACTKs") is 10.9% lower than in 2019 (international capacity is down 12.8%). Bottlenecks have been encountered in important hubs, and capacity is still limited. In the case of an imbalance between supply and demand, freight rates in December 2021 are almost 1.5 times that of 2019. Even so, in the context of high sea freight rates, air freight is also competitive with sea container transportation, and in the context of the new crown epidemic, all kinds of medical and protective equipment are usually transported by air.

Therefore, whether it is the advantages of air transport in the short term, or the growth of cross-border e-commerce logistics demand in the medium and long term, it indicates that air transport will be a growth point in the logistics field, and Fei Xiebo, which has recently obtained new financing, has booked unmanned freighters, and the SF Logistics and JD Logistics we know are also expanding or planning to form their own fleet.

Why do shipping companies that are not "professional" get involved in air freight? This involves the strategic transformation of shipping companies, led by Maersk, the development of full logistics, the provision of end-to-end solutions has been the consensus of a number of shipping giants, in Maersk's statement, the expansion of the air transport department is to create a more comprehensive transport network, improve the level of integrated logistics services. Air transport is not only a part of multimodal transport, but also a supporting investment in door-to-door logistics business. It is not difficult to see that the giants that have formed or expanded the air freight department are also acquiring logistics or freight forwarding companies, and conversely, Hapag-Lloyd, which has stated that it will not enter the air freight industry, has repeatedly stated that it will not expand its territory in the logistics industry.

But must the transformation of the whole logistics have to buy an airplane? The port circle (ID: gangkouquan) believes that the equation of buying an airplane = full logistics may not be true. In addition to Maersk's long-standing aviation department, Evergreen Group also has its own fleet and sea-air intermodal transport business, but Evergreen Group has denied the speculation of transforming to full logistics. On the other hand, multimodal transport business can be carried out without aircraft, and COSCO SHIPPING has entered into agreements with a number of airlines to carry out air freight forwarding business, providing a variety of service options. More importantly, the formation of an organic team is the same as buying ships and shipping goods, which is both a heavy asset investment and a professional barrier, and the shipping giants who are not familiar with the air transport business rely on professional management in addition to spending a lot of money, CMA CGM and The Mediterranean still need to cooperate with other airlines after having aircraft, and it is not as seamless as imagined.

Buying an airplane as the key puzzle to transform the whole logistics is full of uncertainty, after the above layers of fog, there is a bigger myth hanging over the entire port and shipping industry, the larger the company, the higher the business integration, the better the service, the higher the efficiency, the better the user experience? The reason why shipping giants buy planes today is that air freight provides alternative modes of transportation, and after the shipping giants integrate the entire logistics chain, where do consumers go to find alternatives?