Captain Cargo
Fashions For Freight Dogs
Captain Cargo grew up in Southern Africa, where, at
the age of nineteen, he started flying by accident. After ten years
spraying tsetse flies, locusts and other nasty insects, interspersed
with spells flying tourists and Hemingway wannabes around the Okavango
Delta and Kalahari Desert, he moved to the United Kingdom.
After obtaining a UK ATPL, he joined an airline that flies freight for
a major parcel delivery company. He has been doing it ever since, and
now flies a Boeing 757 freighter around Europe, mainly at night. Mail
to: CaptainCargo@aircargonews.com
I guess uniforms are essential, though I often think
the standard uniform of white shirt, tie, black jacket and trousers
is inappropriate for freight flying. Come winter, most of us ditch various
parts of the uniform and all sorts of jackets, scarves, woolly hats
etc. appear, with some of the more colorful characters looking more
like motorway workers with the whole ensemble topped off with a high-vis
vest.
Still, when you look at the uniform UPS pilots have to wear, I
suppose ours isn’t so bad. Except the hat. I mean, what a ridiculous
piece of attire. It would be more at home on the head of one of the
Village People than walking through an airport. I lost mine years ago.
There are probably only ten pilots in the company that wear one.
One company I worked for, a well-known Scottish airline, was quite
strict about the uniform. Hats were obligatory, and I had to polish
over the orange stitching on my Doctor Martin boots.
Some of our pilots and engineers have come up with novel labor-saving
combinations.
Why iron a shirt when you can wear a jumper over it? Just turn
down the heating in the flight deck. If the other crew members get cold,
tell them to put on a jumper.
By far the best, though, was one of our Captains who used to fly
a Bandeirante. Realizing that all the passengers ever saw of him was
his right hand, shoulder and arm, he only ironed the right hand side
of his shirts.
Now he’s flying freight, he doesn’t iron his shirts at all.
As winter drags on, I’m expecting the company to publish something
about dress code. It won’t get much response.
It’s just too cold in Scandinavia to insist we wear the standard
issue clothes.
We can only heat the flight deck on the ground with the apu running.
We stand around in the mornings waiting for taxis in the snow or
rain.
The passenger crews walk past us as they report for work in their
immaculate uniforms and shiny shoes and look down their noses at us,
their shoddy brethren flying ancient dirty machines while they press
buttons and stare down the hostess’s cleavage as she serves them breakfast.
Ah, little do they know. As they fly their six sectors a day on
the same route all week, waiting for their slots, I’m asleep, waiting
for darkness and the noise of three JT 8’s piercing the night, carrying
me off to some city I never expected to visit this week.
My dirty boots rest on the footrest in front of me, tie removed
hours ago, as I wonder if we’ve lost radio contact or if it is just
another quiet night.
Sleep well, my immaculate friends.
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Air
traffic in the Middle East is experiencing rapid growth. In Dubai and
Abu Dhabi alone, traffic has increased by 234 percent in the last 10
years. The emergence of the Middle East into one of the world’s
top international hubs and tourist destinations is boosting demand,
as is its unique geographical position with some 85 percent of the world’s
population concentrated within range of a long-haul flight. This includes
India, China and the Asia region, which by itself will account for 31
percent of all demand for aircraft in the next 20 years.
The
Middle East and North Africa is currently the only region which is experiencing
growth in the airline industry this past year, according to recent remarks
by the head of the International Air Transport Authority (IATA).
Airport
International Group (AIG), the Jordanian company responsible for rehabilitation,
expansion and operation of the Queen Alia International Airport (QAIA),
released its 2009 third quarter traffic performance report.
The
General Organization of Sea Ports (GOP) has released the operational
statistics for the first quarter of operations, showing steady improvement
in the overall efficiencies and turn over times at KBSP for the period.
Running at full capacity, KBSP is capable of handling a throughput of
1.1 million TEU per year, with a total of 10,800 ground slots for containers
(stacks of five containers).
period
in 2008. This surge was mainly due to the design of KBSP’s infrastructure,
which included sophisticated services comparable to those in the most
renowned international ports, in addition to the installation of top-of-the-line
equipment such as the new customs scanner and sophisticated gantry cranes.
The port operators, APM Terminals, also played a significant role in
these improvements, bringing its global experience in the management
of international ports to bear in KBSP, positively reflecting on the
overall performance improvements.
Gary
Chapman (right) and Robert Williams (left).
