The Air Freight Market with Eric Kulisch

Eric Kulisch and Joe Lynch discuss the air freight market. Eric is the Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves, the leading FreightIntel provider, offering current digital intelligence and context to the freight community on a central platform.

About Eric Kulisch

Eric Kulisch is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves. An award-winning business journalist with extensive experience covering the logistics sector, Eric spent nearly two years as the Washington, D.C., correspondent for Automotive News, where he focused on regulatory and policy issues surrounding autonomous vehicles, mobility, fuel economy and safety. He has won two regional Gold Medals from the American Society of Business Publication Editors for government coverage and news analysis, and was voted best for feature writing and commentary in the Trade/Newsletter category by the D.C. Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. As associate editor at American Shipper Magazine for more than a decade, he wrote about trade, freight transportation and supply chains. Eric is an avid doubles beach volleyball player. He is based in Vancouver, Wash.

About FreightWaves

FreightWaves is the leading freight intelligence provider, offering current digital intelligence and context to the freight community on a central platform. FreightWaves’ SaaS product, SONAR, is the leading freight market analytics tool and dashboard, aggregating billions of data points from hundreds of sources to provide the fastest data in the transportation and logistics sector. FreightWaves.com, the company’s news site, is the leading provider of news and commentary for the transportation and logistics space. FreightWaves also hosts conferences under Transparency and MarketWaves branding and is a co-developer of the first futures contracts dedicated to trucking spot rates.

Key Takeaways: The Air Freight Market

Eric Kulisch is the Supply Chain and Air Cargo Editor at FreightWaves, the leading freight intelligence provider, offering current digital intelligence and context to the freight community on a central platform.
In the podcast interview, Joe and Eric discuss the air freight market and the impacts of COVID, port congestion, and the supply chain crisis.
Traditionally, air freight moves about 1% of the total freight volume and that freight accounts for about 33% of the value, which means the stuff being moved by air is typically smaller, and more valuable like mobile phones, computer chips, medicines, fashion goods, etc.
During the pandemic, air freight became even more important as the vaccines were shipped worldwide. While moving freight by ocean is more cost effective, when the product is perishable and the need is urgent, air freight is utilized.
As a result of the pandemic there was less passenger travel, but significantly more air cargo so airlines modified (removed seats) to move more freight. Planes that can be modified to move either air cargo or passengers are called preighters.
The supply chain crisis, port congestion, trucker protests, ecommerce sales growth, etc. caused a greater need for air freight services, especially expediting.