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Lufthansa and Swiss take a fresh look at airfreight pricing
[ August 5, 2015 // Chris ]Lufthansa Cargo and Swiss WorldCargo’s and Lufthansa Cargo are to offer a new pricing concept, but have stopped short of rolling up fuel and other surcharges into the basic freight rate as a handful of other carriers have done in the last few months. The carriers’ new structure will consist of two components: a net rate plus an airfreight surcharge which, they promise, “will be significantly lower compared to the combined fuel and security surcharges, which will be eliminated with the start of the winter flight schedule.”
Furthermore, they predict that it will “lead to a re-aligned and increased net rate that will reflect the real value of our service in an adequate way. Overall prices of transportation will remain at current levels.”
They add that the new surcharge will be “market oriented” to reflect the volatility of external cost factors, such as fuel, exchange rates, flight dependent cost such as airport charges and fees, all of which are beyond the carriers’ control. It will be adjusted whenever one of these external cost factors changes significantly and in a transparent way. They add: “This would not have been the case with an all-in rate, which we also investigated in detail. An all-in rate would have required a less transparent adjustment mechanism in the event of significant fluctuations in costs beyond our control.”
The new approach would avoid special processes such as negative rates and help shorten transaction and response times to customers.
Customers will also be offered the option of securing stable total rates for certain types of long-term contracts, even when they extend beyond a single season.