U.A.E Sea-Air Services

Ever since our Dubai office, Globelink West Star started its Sea-Air service in year 2000, it has been providing an attractive option to it existing seafreight clients. Its Sea-Air capability is more cost effective and offer a much better transit time when timing is crucial.

With advance development of this Sea-Air service, it has further strengthened Globelink West Star's market leadership position in the United Arab of Emirates.

In view of their expertise, Mr. Sumesh Nair, Commercial General Manager of Globelink West Star was invited to contribute an article on development of the S ea-Air market, in a Magazine called “Sea Freight Middle East” published from Dubai . The article was presented under a dedicated column - “Ask the Expert “ entitled “ What developments in the Sea- Air market is taking off in the Middle East” . Below is the full article written by Mr Sumesh Nair.

THE ARTICLE

What developments in the Sea- Air market is taking off in the Middle East

Historically in 1960 ‘s when airlines like Air Canada were looking for alternative to fill in their cargo capacities to the East like Europe and also to the North Americas, the concept of Sea - Air was presumably born. Arguably, Air Canada can be credited for the birth of the Sea- Air mode of transportation with first serious points of transportation being the Japan Canada sector by Sea and further distribution by Air Canada to Europe and the USA .

Gradually this concept expanded to the other points in Asia and soon Korea emerged as one of a prominent Sea- Air hub with likes of Korean Air providing exuberance of cargo capacities towards West Bound and North American countries for cargo originating from Main Land China and Taiwan .

Later the Gateway or hub concept of Sea- Air spread further into Singapore and more recently to Dubai .

Dubai now boasts as one of the top 7 leading Sea- Air Transport hubs . The Sea-Air cargo capacities via the Emirates of Dubai has been growing by leaps and bounds and is now the most sought after transit point over the North Pacific Route.

Sea- Air as an integrated Multimodal solution and not an alternative solution

Sea-Air mode of transportation has broken the traditional barrier of an alternative solution to the slower Sea mode and perhaps the expensive Air mode and is now being accepted as distinct integrated multimodal activity.

Though by various definition, Sea –Air can be classified as an integration of 2 modes of transportation viz the first leg transportation by Sea Freight mode and the second leg transportation by Air mode.

This combination thereby offering a very drastic saving in transit time compared to pure Sea Freight mode, yet at the same time also offering a saving of up to 50% compared to pure air freight cost.

Advantage Dubai as a Sea/ Air Hub :-

Seaport Advantage

• Home to 2 best, most efficient Sea Ports in the world i.e the Jebel Ali & Port Rashid port being served by almost all the major shipping lines of the world predominantly from the far east with a very short average transit time of 11-14 days from main ports Hong Kong , Main Land China , Indian Sub continent and Main South East Asian ports.

• Fast and Simple Customs & Administrative formalities

• Seamless transport connection that ensures that the cargo can be custom cleared at Seaport and delivered to the airline within 4- 6 hours.

• Dubai Airport being the regions largest cargo hub with state of the art Cargo handling facility support ed by one of the best IT infrastructures. The efficiency of Dubai airport services providing company DNATA is an additional plus they have further augmented the sea- air concept by dedicating 7 docks to receive Sea- Air cargo.

• Dubai Airport offering a choice of over 100 export destination per week.

• Emirates Airlines playing a very vital role in the development of Sea / Air cargo with their ever growing fleet that offers plentitude of direct services into Europe, Africa and recently also to the USA.

In addition to Dubai , the nearby Airport of Sharjah Airport has also played a very vital role in augmenting the Sea-Air cargo movements via the region. With many airlines operating direct scheduled freighter capacities from Sharjah Airport into the Europe Sharjah airport is also one of the leading Sea / Air hub in Asia and has shown a growth rate of over 50% in the past couple of years.

Future of Sea – Air cargo in the Middle East :-

• With 3 major international airport in the region namely Dubai , Sharjah and Abu Dhabi Airport offering a large number of flight frequency and an ever growing capacities by regional airlines like Emirates, Etihad the Air freight capacities available is set to explode giving further boost to the Sea/ Air scenario

• With the new Airport coming up in the Jebel Ali as part of the newly launched Dubai World Central – Dubai Logistics city which is a truly integrated logistics platform and by virtue of its closeness to Jebel Ali Port , Dubai is further set to make huge inroads into the Sea / Air markets . The Jebel Ali Airport will have over 16 cargo terminals some dedicated exclusively to handle sea- air traffic with emphasis on single handling this also means that the forwarders will be allowed to build their own pallets and deliver them to airline directly as well.

• Expansion of Abu Dhabi Airport and its capacities will also increase the cargo handling capacities and this will also enhance the sea- air movement .

To summarize, Efficient and well developed Infrastructure, Speed , Simple Documentation and admin istrative procedures support ed by one of the best IT infrastructure, Cost effectiveness has contributed to the Ever Growing Sea – Air movement out of UAE specifically Dubai and Sharjah.