Question

Air cargo has experienced a renaissance in the last several years because of skyrocketing international e-commerce amid heightened consumer expectations and reduced oil prices. Additionally, airfreight has become increasingly competitive against other modes of transportation in recent years. Discuss how air cargo should be forecast in 20 years and develop a schematic diagram on the future plan of cargo infrastructure with consideration of air traffic forecast

Answer 1

The forecast data of air cargo is collected from internet and is provided below

Over the next 20 years, world air cargo traffic will grow 4.7% per year. Air freight, including express traffic, will average 4.8% annual growth, measured in RTKs. Airmail traffic will grow much more slowly, averaging 1.0% annual growth through 2033. Overall, world air cargo traffi c will increase from 207.8 billion RTKs in 2013 to 521.8 billion in 2033.

Air cargo has never been solely an airport-to-airport service. Rather, air cargo is a single component of a transportation infrastructure that links the shipper and the consignee. Trucking offers door-to-door and factory-to–distribution center service, which air transport alone cannot provide

The future of any cargo infrastructure is how well it deals with uncertainties and variations.This is an industry with a large range of variation.Flexibility in infrastructure is essential here.Inorder to account for flexibility we need to follow three steps

1 Understant the deterministic design without flexibilities

2 Understand the uncertainties that may affect the design

3 Incorporate flexibility into existing design

This is a general rule in infrastructure.Understand that the forcast is always wrong becaus it is developed not taking in to account the uncertainties that could happen.So the best method is to construct and develop infrastructure slowly by adding newer and newer additions instead of developing the infrastructure as a whole.This helps in tackling losses due to less demand, to imporve opportunities along with the increase in demand and hence a "win- win" situation.