The carrier has flown 6,000 tonnes of cargo in 2024
As e-commerce continues to drive airfreight demand out of Asia, German cargo charter Neo Air Group has operated 60 widebody e-commerce flights from Hong Kong International Airport to Europe, the United States, and Latin America in the past two months to avoid Red Sea disruptions.
Germany-headquartered NEO Air Charter has reported a rise in demand as e-commerce firms look to avoid issues caused by the Red Sea shipping crisis.
The charter firm has operated 60 widebody freighter charters in the first two months of 2024 due to container shipping firms taking the longer route around Africa to avoid attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.
“The 60 B747F and B777F charter flights operated from Hong Kong to points in Europe, the US and Central America,” NEO said.
The company added that all flights carried full payloads of e-commerce traffic between multiple shippers and their consignees and that all charters were booked via logistics companies.
“In case anyone was in any doubt, the Red Sea attacks are causing a lot of time-sensitive traffic to switch to airfreight,” said NEO general manager Brian Davis. “We haven’t seen demand like this since the early days of Covid.”
“NEO’s instant access to large-scale capacity was a strong factor in winning the business, but we still had to prove we were providing the most competitive quotes.” The company said that it has also been handling record levels of traffic in other areas such as automotive and humanitarian aid. “We are recruiting extra staff to help us cope with the demand. This is shaping up to be the best year since our launch in 2010,” added Davis.
