Top 25 air freight forwarders of 2016 – It’s déjà vu all over again!

Armstrong & Associates has released its 2016 list of the world’s largest freight forwarders ranked by air freight tonnage, and the list has a very familiar look.

The only new name in the top 25 for 2016 is Apex Logistics, and the only name missing from last year is UTi Worldwide – but UTi isn’t actually missing, because it was acquired by DSV, bumping that Denmark-based forwarder from 16th spot in 2015 year to 9th in 2016. No other company moved up or down by more than two spots, and the ranking of the top four is identical to the previous year. Once again DHL’s combined Supply Chain and Global Forwarding divisions lead the way, followed by K+N, DB Schenker, and UPS.

Our sister publication Air Cargo World has provided a detailed analysis of the air freight forwarding landscape in 2016, which you can access here, so we will not offer much in the way of analysis here, other than to point out that, while the new breed of digital forwarders like Flexport and Freightos have yet to reach the top 25 list, either in tonnage or gross revenue, this seems likely to change before many more years pass.

And a final point: breaking the air freight tonnage moved by the top 25 down geographically, forwarders based in Europe accounted for 57.1% of the total, forwarders based in the Asia-Pacific accounted for 22.7%, forwarders based in North America accounted for 17.6%, and Agility, the lone entrant from the Middle East accounted for the remaining 2.6%.