In 2019, digital freight isn’t a vision; it’s a reality.
Whether by air, land, or ocean, supply chains over the last few months paint a picture of rapid fluctuations.
Land travel restrictions in Asia extended Chinese New Year, dropping ocean freight demand, which, just weeks later, spiked when the shutdown ended.
And, of course, then the potential recession started to tamper demand.
Meanwhile, massive passenger airline restrictions dramatically reduced air cargo capacity, sending rates through the roof.
And, through it all, logistics providers keep critical goods moving.
Ports open and close. Flights and sailings are cancelled in minutes. Much of the workforce is operating remotely.
All this means that available supply and demand can shift too quickly for anyone to keep up.
Email responses are obsolete in just minutes and only digital solutions can keep essential freight moving.
Which is where the Freightos Group comes in.
It’s been clear to us that global trade needs to rely on digital pricing, quoting, and booking to keep up with an already agile environment.
COVID-19’s supply chain impact has only emphasized how critical this is.
So when we got to thinking about how the Freightos Group can uphold our mission to make global trade frictionless during the pandemic, the answer was obvious.
Two of our big bets for 2020 are particularly relevant:
- For ocean freight, the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX), the world’s only data-backed, IOSCO compliant, and most importantly, daily container index
- WebCargo Sky, the world’s largest air cargo platform for live pricing, capacity assessment, and eBooking from global airlines.
So we decided that until the end of the year, we will offer both for free.
For air forwarders, we’re also releasing a free upgrade of live text updates from global airlines – as seen below – to help alleviate communication of market circumstances.
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Details about Each Offering
About the Freightos Baltic Index
The concept of an index, reporting the market price for a specific good or service, was developed to give businesses the right information – in near-real-time – to make intelligent financial decisions.
The FBX has been produced weekly since April 2018 based off of live pricing data from hundreds of global logistics providers. In February, we launched the world’s first daily and regulated containerized freight rate index, and have now made access free for the remainder of 2020.
Covering 12 key trade lanes, this data unlocks the potential to control pricing volatility and will be the foundation for ocean pricing’s evolution towards index-linked contracts.
The FBX gives visibility not only to ocean freight rates, but also to larger patterns of global supply and demand.
As COVID-19 spread to the United States, for instance, the leveling off of the daily China-US freight rates showed how US consumer demand was evaporating as the shutdown in America intensified.
Get Free Daily Access to FBX
About WebCargo Sky
WebCargo Sky is a free platform for IATA-accredited freight forwarders which provides instant air cargo pricing across 370+ airlines.
With WebCargo Sky, forwarders can instantly price air freight shipments from nearly every global airline.
In addition, they can book real-time capacity on key airlines including British Airways, Iberia, Air France-KLM, and Lufthansa.
This makes for efficient booking, shaving days off transit time, reducing costs, and improving service for shippers.
Since 2008, WebCargo has helped top forwarders automate rate management and back-office operations.
Today, over 1,800 logistics providers use WebCargo to access live pricing and eBooking.
