Vol. 11 No. 42                            #INTHEAIREVERYWHERE                            Monday May 6, 2013
air cargo news May 6, 2013

     Kenji Hashimoto, President of American Airlines Cargo, landed this week in Phoenix for his second CNS Partnership Conference since assuming command in May of last year.
     As developments (including the USAir merger) and business have improved, conversation turns to what’s up and what’s next at the airline, which at long last seems to be busting out all over.
     “We are excited about business so far this year, especially as we continue to expand our global network into Latin America, Asia, and Europe.
     “This week beginning May 9, we begin offering nonstop wide body service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Seoul, South Korea, adding to our recent nonstop service between Chicago O’Hare and Dusseldorf, Germany.
     “As far as performance in the first quarter of 2013, we are in line with the year-over-year revenue and traffic performance of our U.S.-industry peers.”


     “We have been surprised by the sharpness of the downtown in exports from Japan, although we’ve used this as an opportunity to increase feed from other important Asian markets such as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Taipei, connecting from our Tokyo gateway.
     “To date, 2013 is down slightly year-over-year, a trend that everyone seems to be enduring.
     “Although we still have not seen a large-scale recovery in freight demand, we are starting to see some positive signs of a turnaround.
     “So far this year, we’ve seen strong exports to Asia, perishables off the west coast, and northbound traffic out of Latin America, specifically Buenos Aires and Santiago.
     “I am pleased with our progress, and I think as we continue to expand our global network, drive new products focused on our customers’ needs and invest in our infrastructure through projects such as our DFW container-friendly perishable cooler and upcoming CRT room in JFK, we will drive more business and be able to better serve our customers.”


     “This is an exciting time for American Airlines Cargo, and there have been many significant developments over just the past year.
     “We continue to expand our global network into Europe, Asia, and Latin America, providing customers with more shipping options to meet their needs.
     “In June 2013, we’ll add JFK to Dublin, Ireland and ORD to Helsinki, Finland. Then later this year we'll be adding DFW to Bogota, Columbia, MIA to Porto Alegre and Curitiba in Brazil and LAX to Sao Paulo, Brazil.


     “This year, we were the first U.S. airline to take delivery of the Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which gives us more cargo capacity—38 percent more than the 777-200.
     “The 777-300ER is part of our plan to create the industry’s most modern, fuel-efficient fleet among U.S. carriers, and it is helping us to update equipment to existing routes. Today, the 777-300ER is flying between Dallas/Fort Worth and London Heathrow; New York – JFK and Sao Paulo, Brazil; and New York – JFK and London Heathrow.”


     “This week on May 7, as part of our partnership with OnAsset Intelligence, we will begin offering customers a new, one-time use program with FlightSafe®, the leading GPS and sensor-based tracking device for air cargo shipments.
     “Customers will be able to add the tracking device to any U.S. domestic and international shipments and get more peace of mind with the ability to view the location, location history, and all sensor data collected during transit.
     “Over the past couple of years, we have been investing in our facilities to make sure our customers’ perishable shipments arrive safely and are well cared for.
     “Late last year, we opened a new, 1,800 square foot, state-of-the-art, container-friendly perishable cooler in Dallas/Fort Worth, similar to the one set up at Miami in 2006. Both offer the latest infrastructure, as well as employees who are trained in working with temperature- and time-sensitive cargo.
     “Later this year, we expect to complete our expansion at New York – JFK.”


     “I have really enjoyed attending industry trade shows this year, as it’s given me an opportunity to meet and develop relationships with our customers and key industry leaders.
     “These events are great opportunities to hear firsthand what’s on the mind of our customers, which ultimately helps us to develop and create solutions to better meet their needs.
     “American will continue to have a strong presence at trade shows for the rest of the year.
     “We will be participating in Air Cargo Europe, IQPC’s Cold Chain Temperature Management Global Forum, and Air Cargo Americas, among others.
     “The international market is key to our business, and this is evident by our expansion into Europe, Latin America, and Asia.”


     “As mentioned, we plan to expand into Latin American later this year, with service to Bogota, Curitiba, and Porto Alegre, and we have plans to add daily wide body service between Los Angeles and Sao Paulo.
     “Today, our 777-300ER is bringing more capacity between New York – JFK and Sao Paulo, Brazil, and in 2014, between Chicago O’Hare and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
     “Latin America, as a whole, is one of our strongest performing regions and is one of the areas where we see continued growth.
     “On both the passenger and cargo sides of our business, Latin America has been growing in traffic and revenue.
     “Brazil shows many signs that indicate a very strong outlook for the region, including its upcoming debut on the world stage with the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Rio Olympics, the boom of the oil and gas business, recently signed free trade agreements in Panama and Columbia, growth of the middle class, investments in infrastructure and improved political stability.
     “In April, we added nonstop service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Lima, Peru.
     “Later this year, we’ll be adding new nonstop service between Dallas/Fort Worth and Bogota, Columbia; Miami and Porto Alegre, Brazil; Miami and Curitiba, Brazil; and Los Angeles and Sao Paulo, Brazil.
     “We will continue to invest strategically to strengthen our network and customer relationships in South America.”


     “We want shippers to know that we have one of the best and most dedicated sales and operations teams in the industry—something we hear all the time from our customers. And, we know the importance of collaboration; that’s why we partner with forwarders to provide their customers with creative solutions for their shipping needs.
     “One of the most common misperceptions about American Airlines Cargo is that we’re a U.S.-centric airline. While we are proud to be American in name, we are a global airline with a growing network that serves cities all across the world—from Europe to Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Latin America, and Asia.”
(Geoffrey)





A landing aircraft is seen over the iron metro rail construction rods in Chennai Airport last week, as airport cargo workers went on strike deploring wages and working conditions.

     Cargo is piling up at Chennai International Airport as a go-slow by staff of the ground handling agency, Bhadra International.
     As May 2013 begins the situation has gone from bad to worse, as ground handlers, demanding a rise in wages and an improvement in working conditions, stopped work altogether at the end of April.
     With cargo piling up at the terminal, airport operator Airports Authority of India was forced to announce a shutdown of cargo operations for three days.
     Reports from Chennai indicate that cargo from 50-odd flights had piled up at the airport, leading forwarders and others to point out the disruption in the supply chain of automotive components manufacturers, among others.
     Although things are expected to get back to normal, Bharat Thakkar, President, Air Cargo Agents Association of India (ACAAI), said that while the shutdown by AAI was a “big shame” for Chennai, the just-in-time inventory system of major manufacturers at Chennai—Nokia, Hyundai, Ford, and many others—would go haywire and even affect production.
     In the long term, he said, this would have a direct effect on exports and imports from the city just at a time when the gateway would appear to be taking off.
     The automotive manufacturers were the most affected. Chennai, which is on its way to becoming the ‘Detroit of India,’ boasts of car giants like Ford, Renault-Nissan, Honda, Hyundai, and others.


      Ford India has targeted export of 25 percent of its total vehicle capacity from Chennai. While the vehicle capacity at Chennai and the plant coming up in Ahmedabad will total 440,000 per year, the company will manufacture around 610,000 engines. Meanwhile, Honda Cars India will be exporting diesel engine parts to Asian and European suppliers from its Chennai plant and Apollo Tyres has chalked out plans to ship to ASEAN (Association for South East Asian Nations).


     Air cargo tonnages have been going up over the years in Chennai and the cargo terminal has seen double-digit growth over the last couple of years. It was not without reason that with the increase in volumes and lack of warehouse space, both ACAAI and the Chennai Custom House Agents Association (CCHAA) have been pushing to start Air Freight Stations at locations away from the airport.
     Carriers from around the world have seen the potential of Chennai. Last year, around this time, China Airlines launched its bi-weekly freighter service to Chennai—the only direct cargo flight between Chennai and Luxembourg—leading its Senior Vice-President Brian Chou to comment, “this is a very valuable route.” The Taipei-Kuala Lumpur-Chennai-Luxembourg service has fuelled the Indian export-import business and it was started after seeing the “strong demand from Chennai,” according to China Airlines. In fact, the carrier had a stopover in Delhi but that was discontinued in favor of Chennai, which had more potential.
     Before China Airlines, in March 2012, Air China Cargo launched freighter flights from Shanghai to Chennai on the Shanghai-Chennai-Chongqing-Shanghai route. It was the first cargo route to South Asia and Southeast Asia from Air China Cargo and enhanced the carrier’s capacity into the Asia Pacific market.


     The interest of international carriers notwithstanding, AAI’s plans to make Chennai airport a cargo hub for South-East Asia seems to be going awry if the present situation continues for long. In fact, the airport’s cargo section has been facing labor problems for the past few months; a flash strike by ground handlers took place barely a fortnight ago.
     AAI Chairman V. P. Agrawal believes Chennai has the potential to become a hub. A number of carriers have shown interest in the airport. A senior AAI official even went to the extent of saying that the airport was open to carriers using the airport as their hub, but before that, basic infrastructure like MRO facilities needed to be provided.


     When it comes to air cargo, AAI has revised its master plans for Chennai and there are plans to set up yet another new cargo terminal (the airport’s new terminal was opened by the Vice President of India Hamid Ansari only in January of this year).
     According to the plans, for the second phase of development of the airport, a new cargo terminal would be readied.
     It would possibly be on a Build-operate-Transfer (BoT) model, where the land would be provided by AAI, and a private company would develop and maintain the terminal.
Tirthankar Ghosh


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s far as we can tell, yes, life does indeed go on after you serve as CNS President.
Take the case of Tony Calabrese, who helped start up CNS and for a while looked like the only President the organization would ever have.
     Tony (left) dominated the scene from 1986 until 2006 and today is happily retired.
     Jens Tubbesing (right) served as CNS President after Tony departed and then went on to start up a GSA.
     Michael Vorwerk, who came from Lufthansa and served as CNS President, is back at Lufthansa, and as far as we can tell no worse off, even maybe richer in terms of experience for his time atop the IATA” Special Interest Group.”
     Accustomed to taking on challenging projects, Michael has landed a humdinger of an assignment in Frankfurt, but more about that later.
     When Michael joined CNS it was clear from the beginning, this was to be for a four-year period only, and at the end of those four years (2008 until 2012) he would return home to Germany.
     And so last August 2012, that is exactly what happened; it was so-long Miami and hello Frankfurt for Michael.
     So what is Herr Vorwerk up to these days?
     In addition to serving as Lufthansa Cargo Head of Sales Development for Germany, Michael is also the Board Representative for the strategic project titled 'Gateway Frankfurt,' which to hear him tell it is “an exciting and fast developing part of the long term future program as part of ‘Lufthansa Cargo 2020.’”


     As much as he enjoyed his time in the U.S., first in MIA as MD and COO for LifeConEx, followed by 3 1/2 years in Miami as President of CNS, “it feels good to be back in Germany again and back in Frankfurt, in the heart of the Lufthansa Cargo organization,” Michael said.


     Frankfurt is the central part of the operation for Lufthansa Cargo, with about 80 percent of the company’s tonnage going through the airport.
     So as FlyingTypers learned, the Lufthansa Cargo board decided to elevate attention and detail of this most vital gateway hub with extra focus via the Gateway Frankfurt strategic project, aimed to enhance the performance level and competitiveness of Frankfurt and exploit its market potential.
     The idea is that through a coordinated effort, Frankfurt would be recognized for its true brilliance and many attractive qualities, driving growth amongst the companies who do business here and, of course, Lufthansa Cargo as well.
     Lufthansa Cargo sees itself in a leading role concerning the development of a neutral location, while showing how the base helps strengthen Lufthansa Cargo and drive its growth.
     Such a dual role, neutral location development, plus the furtherance of Lufthansa Cargo's interest did not exist previously.
     “It's thrilling to start an absolutely new approach, having Lufthansa Cargo's development in focus but also the development of the whole Frankfurt hub,” Michael said.
     “Working together with the other stakeholders here creates a dynamic where we can all learn from each other.
     The saying ‘the more boats in the water, the bigger the wake’ applies here:
     “Gateway Frankfurt will build business all around,” Michael added.
Geoffrey/Sabiha

 


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