Vol. 9 No. 50                                                            WE COVER THE WORLD                                                  Sunday April 18, 2010

Lufthansa Cargo MD11F
Unaffected By Ash

     The closure of most parts of the European airspace was eased a bit today (Sunday).
     In Germany the airports of Berlin, Leipzig/Halle, Frankfurt and Frankfurt Hahn were re-opened temporarily but all of them solely for flights in/from easterly direction, i.e. Poland, Russia, China, Japan.
     Other big airports like Munich, Hamburg, Düsseldorf or Cologne remain shut down at least until Monday 8 a.m.
     Officials said that different local and regional ash concentrations in the atmosphere led to their decision allowing air traffic at some of Germany’s airports.
     In France, Bordeaux, Marseille and Toulouse were opened on Sunday and in Spain the national authority Aena allowed flying at Barcelona and some minor airports in the northern and eastern part of the country.
     Meanwhile Air Cargo News/Flying Typers spoke to DLH Chief Pilot Fokko Doyen who told this publication exclusively:
     “We departed in Frankfurt yesterday late afternoon having been given a special permission for a test flight to Istanbul with one of our MD-11Fs.
     “While climbing we must have penetrated the ash layer hanging over most parts of Europe as meteorologists claim.
     “Although the ash was visible we did not notice any irregularities during the entire flight which we completed by cruising at 39,000 feet altitude.
     “After safe landing at Istanbul Airport experts began inspecting the turbines thoroughly with special instruments to get a precise picture of the motors.
     “The encouraging result of this flight and check was that there were no ash particles within the engines, absolutely zero.
     “Today we flew back from IST to FRA and – again – could not detect any volcanic substance in the atmosphere.
     “It was a normal flight from beginning to end just as we conduct it every day.
      “According to professional weather people the cloud is still hanging above our heads but we didn’t detect a single trace of it.”
     Further Lufthansa Cargo reports that today at 20:30 hour (local) another MD-11F coming from Siberian Krasnoyarsk is scheduled to land at Rhein/Main.
     This brings the number up to three LH freighters on Frankfurt’s ground with the rest being parked elsewhere at airports around the world waiting to get green lights for their return.
     The grey cloud that had closed European air traffic completely is however taking its toll on the air cargo business which had just begun to crawl back from the abyss of 2009, the worst financial year in the history of commercial aviation.
     Guy Hardy, (left) head of sales, Brussels Airlines Cargo:
     “Our entire flights in and out Brussels have been stopped as of last Thursday, 4 p.m.
     “Ever since no operation has been conducted due to the volcanic cloud hanging over Europe forcing our biz to a complete standstill.
     “Actually we had planned to start flights again Monday morning but this is highly uncertain at this point due to high pressure and missing winds that hinder the cloud from dispersing.
     “So far we have been hit quite hard since we transport a lot of perishables on our Africa to Europe routes.
     “Now we are sitting on a mountain of vegetables and flowers here in Brussels that we were unable to commute to final destinations like Geneva. We had to find importers that were willing to buy these goods before the plants would get rotten.
     “Parallel we unfortunately had to destroy other transit shipments according to Belgian regulations.
     “This required calling in specialized enterprises that picked up the goods and issued an official destruction document.
     “This job we had to pay for, of course.
     “Meanwhile we informed our African shippers that we aren’t accepting any air freight for the time being until further notice.
     “European consumers will soon feel the implications of this severe disruption of the intercontinental supply of perishables when going to their supermarket and finding poor vegetable offerings in the shelves.”
     Dieter Falk, (right) owner of forwarding agency DWF Air Service GmbH, Frankfurt sees no end to the trouble, now overwhelming air cargo in Europe either.
     “We have a huge backlog of air freight in our warehouse in Frankfurt. The warehouse is almost spilling over with goods that got stuck here.
     “Like an urgent 16 ton-shipment destined to Luanda, Angola for a local brewery.
     “Since in most parts of Europe no flights are coming in or departing, we have stopped all road feeder transports to places like Brussels or Paris.
     “We just would add to the backlog Air France Cargo or Brussels Airlines Cargo are coping with, which doesn’t make any real sense.
     “However, compared to the cargo airlines that are losing millions of Euros, the forwarding agents are in a better position.
     “Our main problem is the delay of the transports that every shipper well understands, but unlike the airlines we don’t have to pay for pilots or freighters that cost a lot of money daily.
     Ralf-Rainer Auslaender, managing director leisure Cargo GmbH, Düsseldorf rides herd on an intricate set up of 18 airlines where the company operates all the cargo space
     “On average we transport 2,000 tons per week on board our mandate airlines, mainly on intercontinental routes.
      “Roughly 66 percent of this volume is on the ground since last Thursday, when the ash cloud began floating across northern and western Europe.
      "Our worldwide team is working 24/7 to come up with innovative solutions for our customers.
     “The disruption of air transport will cause millions if not billions in Euros costs since a huge number of industries depend on fast and reliable supply chains on a global scale.
     “My view is that it is only a question of time until the first carriers knock at their government’s doors to apply for state aid.”
     Marc Buehler, supervisor Emirates Sky Cargo, Frankfurt told Air Cargo News FlyingTypers:
     “Our airline has cancelled all flights to and from Europe except for Rome and Athens which still are open for air traffic.
     “Same goes for Istanbul, which we also continue to serve.
     “In and out of Germany we operate eight freighter B747-400F flights weekly. Beginning Thursday, however we had to stop these flights completely due to the activity of Iceland’s Volcano.”
     In a world turned suddenly upside down air cargo people once again have been hard pressed to come up with creative solutions to get the goods delivered.
     As example Air Cargo News Flying Typers learned that U.S. mail for the military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan normally routed through LHR has been interlined out of USA to BAH for delivery to the troops aboard Gulf Air Cargo.
     No doubt that many creative albeit short term solutions between transportation colleagues of long standing are keeping vital cargo moving, despite the closed airspace in Europe.

Here is some airport news up to the minute:
     At Frankfurt, Lufthansa Cargo cancelled all flights scheduled for Sunday April 18 until 20.00 hrs (8 p.m. local time FRA) (hopeful) and said the airline will review that schedule later in the day.
     Also of note, Lufthansa Cargo is only accepting booked and confirmed shipments with dimensions of less than 100 cm *100 cm *100cm.
     More at www.lufthansa-cargo.com.
     Budget carrier Ryanair said all its scheduled flights to and from the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, northern France, northern Germany, Poland and the Baltic States have been halted until 1pm on Monday.
     UK Transport Secretary Lord Adonis yesterday (Saturday) warned it was 'likely that significant disruption to most UK air services' would continue for 'at least the next 48 hours.”
     Channel Tunnel high-speed train company Eurostar reported that its 58 services were full yesterday.
     This meant the company was able to handle more than 46,000 passengers on its trains running between London, Paris and Brussels.
     Many people took to ferries to reach the Continent.
     According to one press report, some businessmen paid a taxi driver £700 to take them from Belfast to London after being stranded by flight disruption.
     Another report had a British businessman stranded in France buying a women's bicycle to board a ferry in a bid to get home for his wife's birthday.
     Meantime echoing Guy Hardy’s comments, reports are circulating that fruit and vegetables including lettuce, grapes, spring onions and asparagus may be missing from many supermarket shelves next week across the UK as produce from overseas will also see higher prices.
     Norbert Dentressangle, a major French transport and logistics company, said activity at its perishable cargo handling center at Heathrow, the UK's largest, is at a standstill.
     Meanwhile World Health Organization now announced that Europeans should try to stay indoors if ash starts falling from the sky.
     Another report notes that as airlines re-book and refund customers, insurance firms are mulling whether they will side step refunds by invoking 'Act of God' clauses to escape a payout.
Heiner Siegmund/Geoffrey

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