Future air freight in landlocked countries

The main difficulty for landlocked developing countries is to generate enough traffic to attract air freight services that are both frequent and competitively priced. Permitting free competition, or “open skies,” for air cargo services can be significant but not sufficient if most cargo is transported as small shipments in passenger aircraft.

Liberalizing passenger services to include fifth freedoms has been a greater challenge, especially in countries with a national carrier and limited passenger volumes. Also important is expanding the role of consolidators, especially the large integrators such as UPS, and the international freight forwarders specializing in air cargo such as Kelly Logistics, as well as local forwarders with international connections.

The demand for air freight is limited by cost, typically priced 4–5 times that of road transport and 12–16 times that of sea transport. Air freight rates generally range from $1.50–$4.50 per kilogram, while the value of air cargo typically exceeds $4.00 per kilogram. Commodities shipped by air thus have high values per unit or are very time-sensitive, such as documents, pharmaceuticals, fashion garments, production samples, electronics consumer goods, and perishable agricultural and seafood products. They also include some inputs to meet just-in-time production and emergency shipments of spare parts.