Hot Potato Greets Baldauf
At Air India

     After the severe mauling from the Parliamentary Committee on Public Undertakings for the merger – termed as an “incompatible marriage” -- between Air India and Indian (Airlines), Capt. Gustav Baldauf is winner of its COO Derby.
     Baldauf is the first expatriot chief operating officer in the flag carrier's history.
     His appointment was cleared at Air India's Tuesday board meeting.
     This will not be his first India posting as he worked at Jet Airways in 2005 as vice-president, flight operations.
     Capt. Baldauf, an Austrian national, is an experienced professional with over 26 years of flying experience at Austrian Airlines and Air Union and also for airplane manufacturer Airbus Industrie.
     Interviews had been going on for weeks between five candidates – three of them were short listed last week from the 140-odd airline executives from around the world who had sent in their resumes in reply to the advertisement that had appeared in The Economist and the Financial Times newspaper.
      Among those who had applied for the post were top honchos from American, European and Australian carriers.
     After going through the tough selection process, a panel comprising Civil Aviation Secretary M. Madhavan Nambiar, Air India Chairman and Managing Director Arvind Jadhav, (right) industrialist Anand Mahindra, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Mahindra and Mahindra, Uday Kotak, Executive Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd, and Sajjan Jindal, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of JSW Steel Ltd. chose Capt Baldauf.
     According to insiders Baldauf has been handed a hot potato and will have to hit the ground at near full speed because by any measure he will his hands full.
     To begin with, Baldauf will have to attune himself to his new and hostile surroundings (Air India’s unions are very powerful and have been opposing the reduction in salaries that are part of the conditions imposed by the government for awarding a rescue package to the airline) with the numerous pulls and pressures prevalent in a government run unit of 30,000-odd employees: walk a tightrope trying to keep the political pressures down and managing a company with losses of more than $1 billion.
      Added to that is the fact that Gustav Baldauf will have to work with Booz and Co. and NM Rothschild and Sons Ltd, the consulting firms that have been asked to chalk out plans for cost-rationalization and debt-restructuring.
     One can only wonder how he will function since he will have to contend with the bigger power center in the organization, the Chairman and Managing Director, a government bureaucrat.
     Gustav Baldauf has gained a reputation as some kind of fireman, moving successfully into tough situations with a hands on, can-do approach such as during his stint at Air Union that gained the good captain kudos all around.
     “Changing an airline culture can be difficult," Baldauf insists.
     “As example decisions and solutions cannot be put off but must be made quickly and correctly,” he says.
     “Working together and cooperation is always the best course.
     “My philosophy is to engage any kind of turmoil directly without delay.”
     Stay tuned.
TG/Geoffrey

Eye On The Press

      "Less Baggage, Big Savings to Airlines” says the headline in a story in the NY Times today.
      While carriers in the USA are charging as much as they can to offset lost revenue, reporter Christine Negroni contacted Air Cargo News/Flying Typers to ask if airlines prefer customers to carry fewer bags to free up space for air cargo and open the opportunity to make more money.
      We told Ms. Negroni that she was climbing the wrong rope, explaining that bags equal revenue, which probably means less room for cargo. Undaunted, she contacted Uli Ogiermann, CEO Cargolux and President of TIACA.
      Here is how that went:
      “The airlines now have more space available for cargo, which sells at a higher rate than a checked bag,” wrote Negroni. (We would add that the freed space is a direct result of airlines charging for pax luggage.)
      “Freight makes a significant contribution to the bottom line of passenger airlines,” says Ulrich Ogiermann, chairman of The International Air Cargo Association.
      The revenue potential “cannot be ignored,” he added.
      Stultifying, we say.
      Uli, who we have repeatedly championed as a good guy, was sand-bagged and at the very least fell victim to being quoted as a non-sequitur, is our take here.     
Geoffrey Arend

Moving Quality & Environment

      Lufthansa Cargo has appointed forty-three year old Ulrich Huesson (left) Director Performance & Process Management.
      He succeeds Guido Baldus who took up the reigns of future development at Lufthansa Cargo’s air freight facilities Rhein/Main Airport (FRA )April 1.
      Ulrich Huesson’s main tasks will be further enhancing the carrier’s ground handling performance and optimizing the seamless flow of shipments from acceptance at the airports to departure and vice versa.
      Herr Huesson is now also in charge of the Lufthansa Cargo commitment in “Cargo 2000,”the global IATA quality initiative for improving the supply chain of air freight.
      Huesson will be based in Frankfurt and commence his new duty April 15.
      Formerly he was Managing Director of Tianjin Air Cargo Terminal (TAT), a handling joint venture in which LH Cargo holds 46 percent of the stakes with Taiwanese financial investor Hwa-Hsia and Tianjin Bin Hai New Area being the other participants.
      Meantime LH Cargo nominated Frank Bräuer (right) to replace Huesson at TAT for an interim term until a successor is appointed. “I am responsible for TAT business until end of July this year.
      “Then some other expert chosen by Lufthansa Cargo will chair this enterprise,” formerly retired and now shortly re-activated Bräuer told ACNFT in a telephone interview. The manager, who has built Shenzhen-based ground handler ICCS sees great potential for Tianjin as cargo gateway in Northeast China. The Bin Hai New Area (TBNA) that covers approx 2,700 square kilometers is approximately four times bigger than the Shanghai Pudong economic zone.
      Currently the vast majority of the Tianjin produced exports are being trucked to 120 km distant Beijing airport:
      “Sixty percent of the uplift at Beijing stem from enterprises based in Tianjin from the 15 million inhabitants in surrounding provinces, Bräuer told ACN/FT.
      Since the Chinese capital is aiming on becoming a ‘green and environmentally friendlyworld address pollution emitting road feeder traffic will be reduced step by step, he predicts.
      “That’s why we at Lufthansa Cargo decided some years ago to set up a handling company in Tianjin instead of Beijing.” However, last year only 160,000 tons of international cargo were counted at Tianjin Binhai International.
      “Because of the more than 4,000 enterprises that have invested a total of 74 billion U.S. dollars here we see an enormous growth potential for air freight volumes at this place,” Bräuer says.
Heiner Siegmund

Air Cargo News FlyingTypers leads the way again as the world’s first air cargo publication to connect the industry to the broadly expanding and interactive base for social commentary—Twitter.
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April 4:   Dance Across The Heavens. AF/ KL Cargo flew Henri Matisse painting Danse from Hermitage in St. Petersburg to Hermitage Amsterdam.

"Guess 2010 is better. Accounting says two and two add up to four again!"

April 4:   No Fooling? Port of Long Beach’s “Pulse of the Ports” forecast event say economies are rebounding, but challenges still ahead.

Keeling Scores Cliche Kitsch

Air freight is full words and phrases that have become industry cliches.
Like most cliches, they lose their meanings over time.
Here are some of the most common words and phrases with their translations that have been used, abused and generally mistreated by execs who substitute corporate jargon for genuine thought.

* Seamless supply chain: Perhaps the most overused phrase in the air freight lexicon. Translation: We're praying our freight is getting to its destination on time and without too many hassles.

* Strategic Partner: Translation: We're going to get as close to our customer as we possibly can and fight like hell to freeze out any other forwarder trying to invade our turf.

* Supply chain solutions: We're going to do our best to convince the customer that freight is no longer the simple business of moving cargo from Point A to Point B but a complicated logistics system combining highly advanced computer technology with expensively trained MBAs.

* Competitive pricing: Translation: we won't be underbid by anyone.

* Value added services: Translation: If we can't make money hauling customer's freight because of our lo-ball bid, we'll try and pick up some other services like warehousing to at least make a few bucks.

* Target markets: We'll go after every customer we can grab.

     That Lufthansa Cargo move last August of 22 flights for its Northeast Asia-to-Europe route from Astana, Kazakhstan, to Yemelyanovo Airport in Krasnoyarsk has worked out although Customs processing is challenging with Christian Becker, Lufthansa Cargo's director for Russia and the CIS telling Moscow Times:
     “Only in Russia did we need to set up a special documentation process, which is extremely costly and resource-intense,” Becker said.
     But Russia continues to attract air cargo. Just last month Air China added Novosibirsk’s Tolmachyovo Airport as stopover for it’s thrice weekly PVG/FRA freighter.

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