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OCT 31, 2026 AT 12:00 AM GMT-0400
Multimodal services
One team owns your move from first mile to last
Air, sea, road and rail move as one shipment, coordinated by specialists who know it by name. We build the route around what your cargo actually needs, then stay with it every leg of the way.
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DO YOU NEED MULTIMODAL SERVICES?
Made for the freight no single mode can finish
Multimodal exists for the shipments where one mode runs out of reach, runs up the cost, or runs short on time. When cargo has to change how it travels to reach its destination, the move is only as strong as the plan holding the legs together.
- No single mode reaches the destination: The route crosses an ocean, a border, and a stretch of road or rail. Air takes the leg that can’t wait. Ocean or rail carries the one that can. It only holds together when one team plans the whole sequence as a single move.
- Every handoff would otherwise land on you: Split a shipment across separate carriers and you inherit every gap between them. When a vessel sails late or a tuck misses its window, one team owns the fix and the reroute.
- Speed and cost pull against each other: The deadline wants to fly. The budget wants to sail. The right plan spends speed only on the legs that need it and holds the cheaper mode for the ones that can wait.
- The destination has no direct line: Secondary ports, inland terminals, or airfields that the big carriers skip. Reaching them takes a route built by hand and a team that has run it before.
How it works
One plan holds the whole route together
Every multimodal move runs the same way, planned before the first booking, owned through every transfer, delivered as one shipment.
The route comes before the booking
Every move starts with a plan. Our team studies the cargo and the deadline, then designs the sequence of modes and marks each point where the shipment changes from one to the next. Those transfer points are where multimodal usually breaks. The whole schedule gets built around them.
One team books every carrier
National holds the air space, secures the road and rail through its partner network, and books the ocean as a licensed NVOCC. Running every booking through one desk is what makes the legs connect as a single route.
The transfers are staged before the cargo arrives
At each point where the shipment changes mode, the handling is ready and waiting. Warehouses consolidate, deconsolidate and cross-dock. Freight never sits longer than the route needs. Oversized pieces get a load plan drawn for their exact dimensions, and customs clearance is arranged for every border before the cargo reaches it.
Watched and rerouted in real time
Every milestone across every leg feeds one system. You follow a single shipment rather than chasing separate carrier updates. When a connection slips or a border backs up, the same team reworks the legs downstream. The plan absorbs it. The date the cargo was promised still holds.
Delivered as one move
The shipment reaches its destination. The record closes out. Whatever mix of air, ocean, road and rail it took to get there, it arrives as a single completed move.
Our multimodal services
Every mode, and the connective work between them
The value of multimodal lives in the connective work. The sequencing, the transfers, and the handling that keep a shipment clean as it passes from one mode to the next.
Air, ocean, road and rail as one plan
Each leg moves by the mode that suits it, with the transfers sequenced so the cargo never waits longer than the route requires. Full container loads, less-than-container loads, break bulk, and roll-on/roll-off all move under the same plan.
Ocean lift as a licensed NVOCC
Space booked and managed with the world’s premier shipping lines, so the sea legs carry the same accountability as the air.
Cost-efficient rail across North America
Access to the major U.S., Canada, and Mexico rail carriers opens long-haul capacity for the heavy legs, often pairs with air where speed still matters.
Warehousing between the legs
Consolidation, deconsolidation, and cross-docking keep freight moving through the transfer points. High-value and temperature-controlled cargo hold their conditions across every mode.
Customs cleared inside the move
In-house brokerage clears each border as part of the route, so the paperwork never becomes the delay.
Oversized and out-of-gauge
Break bulk, roll-on/roll-off, and heavy project pieces get load plans built to the piece, with the equipment and lift to match.
CERTIFICATIONS & COMPLIANCE
The licenses each leg demands
Multimodal freight meets a different rulebook on every leg. National carries them all. Licensed NVOCC for the ocean, dangerous goods certified to IATA, ICAO, IMDG, and ADR across air, sea, and road, with air cargo security throughout.
Our global network
Global reach, owned region by region
National coordinates multimodal moves across the Americas, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, reaching the secondary ports and inland terminals the big carriers route around.
Our industry affliations
We hold standing in the bodies behind every mode we move
Each leg of a multimodal move answers to its own rulebook. Behind each one sits a standards body. National Air Cargo holds active membership across them, from the air cargo associations to the ocean, forwarding and intermodal organizations that govern the rest of the route.
MIssion Highlights
The routes that only work when every leg lines up
The hardest multimodal moves come down to timing. A vessel sailing, a flight departing, a truck at the dock, a border clearing, each in sequence with no slack between them. When the plan holds, the cargo arrives as though it only ever traveled one way.
Ready to move? So are we.
Tell us what you’re moving. We’ll build the plan.
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