Thursday, April 12, 2012

Air Freight Pricing Factors You Need To Know

Many people don't find air freight services cheap, particularly when used for business and commercial purposes. You'd often wonder why they are quite expensive. This is because the process needed to take your package from one destination to another isn't that easy. This is especially true for international shipment. You should also remember that the handling and delivery services of these companies mostly come with the guarantee that your goods will arrive at its destination safely and on time.

One of the most basic things you need to understand is that the actual gross weight of your goods may or may not be the one used to compute for the basic charges of your shipment. The dimensional weight, or sometimes called measurement weight, may be the basis to compute the charges. The freight company will always use the higher value between the actual gross weight and the dimensional weight. This is also to consider the size of your shipment if it will take too much space in the carrier plane.

Among the additional charges your shipment might incur are duties. These are the taxes imposed by the customs authorities of a country on imported goods. Duties and rules regarding them vary from country to country. They are usually computed according to the value of your goods, but may also be affected by the quantity, weight, or all these factors. But there are countries that even allow tax-free imports up to a certain maximum value.

Your total bill may also include the Currency Adjustment Factor (CAF). This is a surcharge imposed by the carrier to compensate for foreign currency fluctuations.

The various import restrictions in countries can also give increase your air freight expenses. Many countries need to protect their own industries and even their environment. For this reason, they impose various types of tariffs, quotas, deposits, and surcharges that will inevitably result to higher freight rates.

Specifically if you're sending valuable goods for your business, you wouldn't dare ship it out of the country without any marine insurance. The idea of having this insurance is to compensate you for the losses you may have due to any unfortunate incident in the carrier. Among the common types of marine coverage are all risks coverage, free of particular average, and with average.

Your expenses for air freight services vary according to the type of goods you send, their destination, and other factors. Make sure you know what your shipment needs to safely arrive at its destination. Ask the freight company any entries in your agreement that you want explained. In this way, you won't be surprised about any additional charges in your bill later on.

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