Air Freight or Sea Freight: Which Shipping is Right for Your Cargo?
While taking decisions regarding choosing Air Freight or Sea Freight company and the method of transportation, many important factors come into mind which should be considered for taking a final decision. One of the most common decisions is deciding how you want to ship your goods. These decisions are easy, however, when factors like early shipment, global destination, and alike choices collide, the decision is hard to make.
In such cases, it is important to understand and have knowledge about air freight and sea freight services at the best freight forwarding companies in India- Jay Kay Logistics.
For global shipment, air and sea shipping methods are commonly and popularly used which provide easy shipment at reliable cost. However, since both are different and have their requirements, choosing sea or air freight can be decided as per your shipment needs. Let’s recognize the difference between the two and where & when air or sea freight services should be undertaken.
Air Freight vs. Sea Freight
Determining the best mode of transportation for your shipment requires an analysis of sea and air freight. Incorporating your needs with the method of shipment can align the two and help you understand which is ideal for safe and fast shipment.
Supply chain needs are vast and reviewing them for once is not sufficient to keep cost-effective and supply chain efficiency.
Therefore, no matter how hard you try, working with a logistics service provider is recommended who offers a complete range of global freight and logistics services. They help you in choosing the right method of transportation for your shipment while making sure about the cost, time and safety. To help you with it, the below points are necessary to be considered while evaluating the best freight service option for your shipment needs.
Speed Differentiates by Mode
When it comes to the speed of delivery of the shipment to the destination, air freight services are much faster as compared to any other mode of transportation. In sea freight, the shipment might take weeks to arrive whereas air freight can deliver the shipment in two-three days. Though ships are getting faster these days, they cannot beat the speed of air freight. Faster delivery of shipments is the foremost demand of many industries. Thus, they choose air freight most often, but it is crucial to take some time and plan out the strategy. It will eventually help you save cost and time
Cost Varies by Mode
People often assume that ocean cargo is cheaper than air cargo, but you should always plan out how each shipment is billed. Many factors are considered while totalling the amount.
Under air freight forwarding service, a shipment is billed according to the weight which is calculated using a metric. They combine the weight and size of the shipment. On the other hand, sea freight forwarding services do not consider weight but they are billed as per the containers. Every standard container of 20×40 is charged at a flat rate whereas less than container loads are charged as per cubic meter.
If your shipment is large, heavy and bulky, then ocean cargo is often less expensive and more suitable. In case the shipment size decreases, the margin between sea and air freight prices also decreases. This is only the initial cost of transportation. Furthermore, it includes many other types of costs such as inventory cost, warehousing fees, customs clearance, etc. Warehousing fees of ocean cargo are more expensive than air cargo.
Conclusively, both air and sea modes of transportation are ideal but choosing one depends on your shipment requirements.
Reliability in Both Modes
Both shipment modes offer great reliability on their terms. Airlines are generally more inclined towards stringent security and safety policies because factors like weather conditions can throw off the entire schedule of airlines easily. Due to this, the flights are rescheduled or rearranged as soon as possible to not delay the shipment. Moreover, there are many stoppages or changing of flights between the cities for dropping or picking up more shipment packages.
Though air freight provides reliability, on the same side ocean cargo also offers great trustworthiness. When the schedules of ships are thrown off, they need some days to get back as the alliance between ocean service and ocean carriers builds more integrity.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, there are several reasons to choose the best mode of transportation for our shipment such as speed, reliability, cost, etc. Evaluating the needs can help you narrow down the shipment method that best fits your budget, time, safety, and flexibility.
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