Uk Truckers Impose Air Cargo Fuel Surcharge

Others are waiting until next week or until the British budget in mid-November, but all agree they can no longer contain the recent surge in fuel costs.

Airlines and forwarders are heavy users of road transport to move cargoes to British airports, as well as to a lesser extent to air cargo hubs in other European countries for transhipment to another continent.

An official at the Freight Transport Association (FTA) said he reckoned transport companies needed to raise rates by two to 2.5 per cent just to recoup the rise in fuel costs in the two and half months to mid-October.

 

Such surcharges are applied on a temporary basis and are reviewed later when they can just as easily come down if fuel prices have dropped, he added.

Servisair (UK) Ltd which moves cargo for airlines, but does not have its own trucks, has passed on a five per cent surcharge imposed from November 1 by Sutherland Air Cargo Ltd who operates as its trucker.

Servisair has told its customers that it is only passing on fuel surcharges where they have been charged and will remove them as soon as they are withdrawn.

But all firms have not yet followed and some of the major companies are waiting until the British budget on November 19 before finalising the size of the increase although this is expected to be the region of five per cent.

Such increases may not come into force until December, top sources in the industry told Reuters.

Some customers said they hope the biggest firms will be able to pass on savings made from bulk fuel purchases and keep surcharges below five per cent.

Most trucking companies have labelled the increases as surcharges but one senior manager at a trucking firm who declined to be identified said, I cant see it coming down, whatever it is called . Ron Smith Transport Ltd which is based at Heathrow said that next week it will give one weeks notice of a five per cent increase.