The association, spanning a network of more than 80 airports, has opened an office in Shanghai. It offers the international market main and lower deck transport solutions together with gateway services to transit cargo to final African destinations which are difficult to reach. A new office in Shanghai is expected to spur these activities.

Shanghai is not the first foothold of the association in China. It already launched neutral scheduled consolidations based on wholesale rates from the major Chinese gateways to JNB, CPT, NBO, and
LOS. The Aero Africa managers expect these services to be expanded by the new Shanghai Strategic Office run by Eric Dong who has an extensive experience in the Chinese cargo market.
According to the organization, the new office provides a centralized customer service and acts as a solution center for its partners and clients, - local and independent GSAs in the Asian region.
It also shall assist the cargo industry in finding final mile logistics solutions and required gateway services provided by African airports.
All-in-one solution
This is emphasized by Jamie Anderson, Director African solutions at Aero Africa, who takes the opportunity to praise his organization’s service offerings: “With selected trusted air cargo
professionals in each African airport, we offer bespoke cost-effective solutions for Africa. This includes freight collect, A2D, DDP, neutral break-bulk, time critical, project air cargo, as well
as final mile solutions, including services to remote difficult to reach destinations, all through Aero Africa’s single point of contact, control, and management.”
Sounds like all-in-one solutions the association offers cargo customers doing business in Africa or to those that are interested in following suit.

Customized e-platform
Juergen Anwander, Director Business Development and Compliance. confirms these objectives, pointing out that his association partners closely with 20 carriers. These offer main deck solutions
from gateways in the EU, UAE, JNB and NBO to over 60 intra-African destinations with some of them not easy to reach. “Our main focus is on transit cargo from Asia and the Americas, as these
markets historically have lack of space on 1st sector, limited main deck capacity directly into Africa and much higher end to end rates as a direct through MAWB to Africa.”
He went on to say: “We are also extending our airline brokerage solutions to include new carriers and new scheduled consolidation origins from those already available.”
In addition, Aero Africa emphasizes that they have developed a customized e-platform destination profile note for each country and most airports in Africa, also many located in the hinterlands.
This service is exclusively available to the association’s freight forwarding partners, consolidators, and airline clients.
Heiner Siegmund
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