Sea-Air Logistics Corridor – A new form of Connectivity

Traditionally, airports and ports are not integrated or coordinated since they service different supply chains, like high value goods for air mode and bulk commodities for maritime mode. Maritime and Air Cargo were characteristically incompatible, implying that port and airport operations were planned separately. Their location just coincided because they both service large urban markets and need to be well connected to road transportation. While this statement is still valid, several changes took place in recent years with the emergence of a level of integration between Port and Airport terminals and their supply chains.Globalisation involved the offshoring of activities over a wide economic landscape, including high value goods. Containerisation substantially improved the time performance, the frequency and flexibility of maritime transportation, enabling to support global supply chains. This implies that maritime transport can compete more effectively with air transport, but also that both transport systems can reach a level of integration. With this integration both the modes of transport can be complementary where they jointly support new forms of distribution.

Complementarity can take place when maritime and air cargo operations are jointly used in supply chain management. The complementarity between Ports and Airports is conferring options (arbitrage), flexibility and also redundancy in supply chain management and help reconcile different global distribution systems. Sea-Air Corridor is the platform that connects both these modes of transport to form new synergies in the supply chain. This link will establish seamless cargo movement with advance information sharing and connect the relevant stakeholders from both the modes.

An important challenge to sea/air logistics concerns the transit of cargoes between bounded areas at port and airport terminals using local roads and highways; cargo has to clear customs for entry and exit. Sea-Air Corridor deals with this issue very efficiently which can link to the free zones in the area. This corridor enables simplified customs procedures for the bounded cargo transiting between customs entities (ports and airports), which helps support the logistics requirement of sea / air movements.

With seamless data flowing from each mode, the corridor promotes streamlined clearance procedures, optimised Logistics, and full digitization to achieve an end-to-end lead time of just few hours for goods transiting from the Port to Airport and vice versa. These gains can translate to a 50% reduction in average lead time compared to pure sea freight and a 40% reduction in cost compared to pure air freight.

Sea-Air Corridor have the potential to position countries and regions as attractive destinations for global and regional trade.