Air Freight from China to the UK – K&L Freight

Air Freight From China

K&L Freight deal with many industries where flying goods from China is necessary in the short term. The obvious advantage of transporting air freight from China to the UK is that it arrives much faster than it would if shipped on a boat.

The negative aspect is that the cost is higher depending on the weight of the goods that are needed to be sent. A common scenario that we encounter is goods need to be delivered quickly, but the cost for delivery via cargo plane is too high.

One way around this is to deliver an initial part load via air freight, with the remainder loaded onto a ship for a later delivery. This provides enough stock to get started whilst the remainder is on its way, and reduces overall cost of getting everything delivered by plane.

Is getting your products from China delivered by air freight the correct option for you?

IATA who are the worldwide trade association for airlines are advising that they reducing the growth predictions to 2% for 2019. This is almost a halving of their previous predictions.

Air Freight Prediction Decline

There are a number of reasons for this decline. As will come as no surprise the China / USA trade dispute initiated by Donald Trump has created a fundamental distortion in the market. Many companies built up stock through 2018 in order to avoid a 25% increase in duty rates into the USA.

As it turns out the 25% duty surcharge did not happen on 1 January 2019, though there is still the threat of implementation should USA / China talks stall.

Brexit Importing Confusion

Brexit is a further issue. The UK is the biggest European import market for China and importers in the UK are collectively holding their breath and not ordering until the confusion over Brexit is clarified.

Finally, Chinese economic growth seems to be stalling, with Chinese manufacturers looking to its domestic market for customers.

See more information about how Brexit could effect the imports from China.

Air Freight Interest Rates

On the positive side interest rates are still very low and  air freight from China is now better value per kilo than ever before.

Looking back 5 years, in real terms air freight from China to the UK or air freight to Manchester from China is half the cost of what is was per kilo back in 2014.

The long term prospects for air freight are still good though due to the rise and rise of e-commerce which more suits the use of air freight due to the speed of import fulfillment.

For all enquiries about importing to the UK from China, please contact us via our online contact form via the link.