It's all international: the hot new market for international air forwarders turns out to be the United States, not China.(Air & Express)

International air freight forwarders see a lucrative new market they are clamoring to get into. No, it's not China. It's the United States.

Three of the world's largest international forwarders recently have announced that they have launched or are planning domestic forwarding services in the United States, an undeniably huge market but one analysts claim has long been ceded to the integrated express carriers.

It's also a market where the largest integrated heavyweight specialists, BAX Global and Menlo Worldwide, have seen steadily diminishing business and profits in recent years, pushing domestic U.S. operations behind international traffic in growth and apparent potential.

That is not how Expeditors International of Washington, Nippon Express and Panalpina see the American freight market, however.

With little real fanfare, all three extended their international services to the intra-United States trade, viewing that large but deeply splintered market as the next logical extension …