Sea Freight vs Air Freight: Pros & Cons For Your Goods
When you engage a professional freight forwarder or shipping company in Singapore, you will not have to spend a lot of time or money transporting the goods from one location to a different one, and you can spend more money on more important things – like ensuring that the goods you are sending are in good condition. For businesses that need to move a lot of their supplies over very long distances, there are two main means of transport: sea freight and air freight.
There are two main differences in air and sea freight: the latter is intended for bigger items, and the latter is intended for less heavy ones. Transport by plane is limited in the number of items that you can move in a single shipment, and you may need to take several flights to get your goods from one place to another.
Sea Freight
Ships can move large loads of goods and are reasonably priced for goods delivery and car shipping from one place to another. Since sea transport is generally the quickest way to get your goods to and from Singapore, it is probably the most cost effective way of freight logistics transportation to move your goods from country to country.
Cost
When shipping by sea, the shipping cost is usually determined by how much you need to ship. Shipments that are less than container loads are normally charged based on the volume (or weight) of the shipment unless the actual weight of the item is actually more. For international shipping in Singapore, when an item is more than 2 CBM, shipping it by sea will cost you less than air freight.
FCL shipping involves paying a single fee for a complete container, and this usually is a flat fee, not depending on how much space is required. It becomes uneconomic to pay for a big LCL shipment once it reaches a particular weight or size, and renting a container with a full capacity is much cheaper. Freight costs for various products will vary by the shipping company you use, but they will tell you if a shipping company can help you get a cheaper rate by using LCL or FCL shipping.
Speed
When it comes to speed, it takes a little longer to sail one country to the other. Not including pick ups, deliveries to customs and other delays.
LCL movers share shipments with a number of other freight forwarders, and consolidating those shipments might require some time as well. FCL liners aren’t always needed, therefore shipments may travel much more quickly than LCL liners due to the fact that FCL liners don’t require consolidation.
Ease of Use
It is important that sea cargo shipments and freight forwarders in Singapore follow certain safety standards, but the standards are not as stringent as those on a plane.
This allows ships to load larger containers, and ships can do a better job loading things that need to be protected than if they are being transported on a plane.
Air Freight
Moving cargo by plane can help you ship goods between countries more quickly, and may be more efficient than using a sea or land based carrier.
Because planes are limited in the amount of weight that they can carry when they take off and land on the ground, they are suited to carrying light cargo. There are various freight fees that are dependent on the weight of what you are shipping. If the cargo is over the legal weight, you’ll have to pay an extra fee for each pound that is added to the cost. Especially if you ship something that is really heavy, it’ll be really costly.
If the cargo that you are shipping is light and small, and if it needs transporting across the country more efficiently, flying is the best way to go.
Cost
Why do most of your deliveries via air? The top reason is that it is very fast, especially if you are delivering items to countries in Southeast Asia. When you consider that many countries within Southeast Asia are relatively close to one another, flights will take about a day at most to get from one country to another. This does not account for any of these stops, such as delivery vans or trucks or even customs clearance.
Speed
However, because of the rapid speed of air transport, you’ll have to pay a premium than for sea freight. Air freight costs are determined using either the actual weight of the item or the volume weight. Volume weight is a measurement that is used to show how large your shipment is and how many pounds it weighs.
Sea freight can save you a lot of money if your order is bigger than 2 CBM. Shipping big boxes of clothes or other small products to your friends and family will save you money. But shipping small boxes that take up 0.5 to 0.9 CBM will cost you extra as they’re not being used. Air shipping is cheaper to use if the volume of your order isn’t big enough for sea freight to be effective.
Ease of Use
When shipments are larger than ordinary pallets, and if the shipment contains goods that are considered to be hazardous, air freight is a difficult option to use. Typically on an aircraft, you cannot put items that are more than 2.4 meters high in it.
Goods that are transported by air must meet the requirements of IATA for hazardous goods. This means that they must be packaged and shipped properly, and any necessary safety documentation should be included. It involves a lot of extra work on the part of the transporter, including the packaging and the handling, and it may involve the use of safety documentation, such as the Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS).
According to IATA, the list of dangerous products include: explosives, gasses, flammable liquids and solids, oxidizing substances & organic peroxides, toxic & infectious substances, radioactive material, corrosive substances, and other dangerous substances.
Some consumers think that most of the things that they buy are not dangerous, but many products that we buy include gasses or other flammability. Batteries are often used in consumer electronics, and IATA has created a set of safety regulations that all electronic devices should meet.
Concluding words
Regent Express is a car shipping company in Singapore with over 20 years of experience. As an international car shipping company, we are experienced in handling international shipments for businesses and simultaneously cater to the specific needs of our individual clients.
Contact us to get your vehicle shipped!
