Show & tell, but still no deliveries . . . Boeing 787 Dreamliner makes its debut landing under a water cannon welcoming at the New Delhi International Airport in New Delhi on July 13, 2011.
     Boeing now says that India would require about 1,300 commercial planes worth USD $150 billion in the next two decades to meet the demands of a growing population of keen-to-fly citizens.
     Air India would be happy to just get its hands on one B787 ordered from and much delayed by Boeing.

     Come January 1, 2012, a number of Indian carriers will be forced to curb flights to Europe.
Along with a number of top world carriers, India’s airlines have protested the European Union’s emissions trading scheme (ETS).
     In a virtual tit-for-tat, Air India, according to sources, has gone to the extent of writing to the government to suggest that Delhi institute similar laws for European airlines flying to Indian airports.
The three Indian carriers that fly to European airports are Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher Airlines.
     The implementation of the ETS comes at a crucial juncture for India: the country’s carriers are looking for more business and connections to Europe.
     Though no official comment has come from any of the airlines—until the time of filing this report—it is well known that Jet, as well as the financially strapped and beleaguered Air India, has drawn up plans to increase services to Europe.
     Air India, for example, has a lot of hope pinned on the Dreamliner reviving its fortunes. Jet’s chief, Naresh Goyal, had commented a month ago that his carrier, which has a hub in Brussels for its flights to the U.S. and Canada, was looking at expansion in Europe and had applied to the Ministry of Civil Aviation for traffic rights. Once the ETS is implemented, fares will rise and could stymie the growth of the carriers.
     What has upset the Indian carriers is the fact that they would have to pay taxes not only for using European airports, but also pay an amount for flying over Indian airspace. According to estimates, each passenger would have to pay an extra amount that would total anywhere between $50 and $150 depending on the fuel efficiency of the aircraft.
     Quoting the air services agreements signed between two countries, a source in the Indian aviation ministry said that Indian carriers would not pay such taxes simply because there was nothing in the air services agreement for paying such taxes. Aviation ministry sources also hinted that India could go back to reworking the bilateral agreements, but it was not known whether the ministry had sent a letter to the EU or not.
     Indian flyers to the 27 EU nations goes into millions and India is ranked 11th in terms of passenger traffic.      According to estimates, the number of passengers flying between EU and India has gone up a whopping 75 percent over the last five years.
     While it is not known whether the Indian carriers would join international airlines to take legal action against ETS like the American carriers have done, the Civil Aviation Ministry has shot off a letter to the European Union about delaying the implementation of the ETS. Back in March, Indian Civil Aviation Secretary Dr. Nasim Zaidi said that India was concerned about the ETS. “This concern,” he said at the UK-India Aviation Meet held in Delhi, “is felt not just by India but by the entire block of developing countries. We would like to be guided by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).” In fact, he even said that India would like to be guided by a global approach of ICAO.
     In a simultaneous move, the Civil Aviation Ministry has also sent a letter to Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh to put pressure on the EU to withdraw ETS. The Prime Minister’s office has acknowledged the issues raised by the Civil Aviation Ministry and will be expected to meet the Ministers of External Affairs and Environment to represent the case of the Indian carriers at the appropriate forums.
     Aviation experts have already started exploring alternative routes to bypass Europe on the route to North America from India. Incidentally, that would mean more flyers taking the Middle East carriers.
Tirthankar Ghosh/Flossie

View of the south pool waterfall as work continues on the National September 11 Memorial and Museum at the World Trade Center site in New York. The memorial is scheduled to be dedicated on September 11, 2011, the 10th anniversary of the attacks.

Neel Shah
Senior Vice President
Chief Cargo Officer
Delta Air Lines

     On September 11, 2001, I was working for United Airlines in the Business Development group. I remember the day as if it were yesterday and can still see the tragedy unfold on CNN as the second plane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. At that point in time you knew that everything had changed and that the industry would never be the same. I didn't work in the cargo part of the business at the time but believe that air cargo has turned 180 degrees in the years since 9/11, with a tremendous amount of resources devoted to the integrity of the freight we put on our passenger planes day in and out.
     At Delta Cargo, safety and security of our customers and planes is our top priority, which is why we have invested millions to make the freight we move secure. The business is a lot more complicated as a result, but that is what we must do in order to stay one step ahead of the bad guys and protect the financial viability of our industry. What we are doing is working, because we haven't lost a plane to terrorism since 9/11 and while the system isn't perfect, we can be proud of the progress we have made. Our future success with initiatives like 100 percent inbound screening will require a great deal of collaboration with all the stakeholders (airlines, forwarders, shippers, TSA, CBP and foreign governments) so we can continue to protect the supply chain and our economic security.
     We simply cannot rely on screening at the aircraft to be the only solution.
     Partnership between carriers, regulatory authorities, forwarders and shippers is essential.
     The critical success factor for air cargo security has got to be cooperation within the air cargo industry and between the TSA and foreign authorities. Unless the TSA and, more broadly speaking, the entire U.S. government focuses the necessary resources on reviewing the process and timeline by which foreign security programs are validated and placed into the TSA's National Cargo Security Program (NCSP), we risk significant disruptions to the global supply chain.

     When it happened I remembered I was driving between Luxembourg and Amsterdam and was picking up news reports in French first which I could not completely follow. When in Holland, I fully realized how big a disaster the world was facing. It was very intimidating and I found it hard to concentrate on the road. I realized the impact would surely be far reaching, that is, on the global economy and in relation to airline security.
     The 9/11 shock ultimately had an impact in many ways on airfreight. One aspect is that it triggered a whole fleet of B747F’s to be deployed in supporting various military activities. This impact is still with us today and has changed supply/demand in airfreight, for example, on Europe/U.S. and Asia/U.S. routes.”

RE: Remembering Robert Strodel

Hi Geoffrey,

     I am shell-shocked after this Robert Strodel sad news.
     Saw Robert last, when I paid him a visit at the hospital in Wiesbaden a few weeks back.
     Robert was an interesting character and his sharp mind always put him a few moves ahead.
     He had been a chess champion in his youth in his home country Austria for a reason.
     A wicked sense of humor, refined during a longer stint in England, always made him look at the bright side, even when life was tough.
     Very sad to see, that taking care of his health better was not a priority on his daily to-do list as he returned to work just too early after being in the hospital.
     I guess 'work-life-balance' is something we must work on everyday as poor Robert's fate shows again.
     He put faith in me and gave me the opportunity of a life-time to prove myself in the trade building-up Etihad Crystal Cargo .
     I will always be grateful for this and he will not be forgotten.

Ingo
Ingo Roessler
ir@forss1.com

      Deutsche Lufthansa once commenced their operations here.
      Thousands of so-called Western Allies’ DC-3 ‘raisin bombers’ landed here during the Soviet’s Berlin blockade in order to fly in vital supplies to the free half of the city during the early stages of the cold war between June 1948 and May 1949.
      Tempelhof, the once crown jewel in the German airport landscape, is located just a stone’s throw from the capital’s vibrating center and, a great airport for 85 years.
      Tempelhof was shut down on October 30, 2008, marking that Thursday as one of the gloomiest days in the long-standing and glorious German aviation history.
      It was Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit who decided to lock the doors of this once formidable and futuristic airport after eight and a half decades.
      At that time, many Berliners could not understand why Tempelhof closed since Berlin’s air traffic was constantly increasing at annual rates of 8 percent.
      Beautiful by any measure, Tempelhof is ideally located near the famous Reichstag, the Brandenburg Gate, the vast number of embassies and the shopping centers in Friedrichstrasse or Kurfuerstendamm.
      This geographical closeness to the center of economic and political power made departures and landings at Tempelhof highly convenient to a clientele that rushed to the city primarily for business – artists, show stars, diplomats, architects, lawyers and all those who belonged to the stratum that can afford to travel first and business class.
      These groups traditionally were eyed with some skepticism by the Berliners, especially in the eastern and formerly communist-reigned part of town, who— at least a high percentage of them— depend on transfer money given by the state to subsidize their daily living.
      In this atmosphere of hidden envy and increasing social contrasts, a facility like Tempelhof was eyed as an ideal place to be sacrificed.
      So the Wowereit administration did the deal as mentioned on October 30 by locking the doors once and for all.
      What follows is Tempelhof as a historical site enjoying state protection – a new urban space for picnics and sightseers and roller skaters gliding around where revenue passengers once roamed.
      It now costs millions of euros a year to prevent Tempelhof from cracking and crumbling.
      In a nutshell, Tempelhof’s birth, rise and fall demonstrate the entire country’s ups and downs for almost a century.
      First there was hope and aspiration: in 1923, Berlin decided to build an airport close to the city center with integrated shopping malls, hotels and restaurants.
      In those early days, a visionary concept soon turned Tempelhof into the busiest airport in all of Europe.
      Then in 1934, shortly after the Nazis had taken over power, they decided to completely rebuild the entire place.
      The architectural result was an elliptic airport building that was 1.2 kilometers in length, then the largest single construction worldwide.
      With the fall of the “Third Reich” and the destruction of most of Berlin, new life was unexpectedly breathed into Tempelhof, especially after 1948, when the Soviets decided to shut all roads and railroads that linked the western parts of the isolated city with the free world.
      Without Tempelhof and the countless DC-3 & 6 and other flights that brought in everything needed for daily life by the trapped Berliners, from beverages to food, machines, garments and even coal to heat their dwellings, Stalin and his regime would have succeeded with their 11-month blockade.
      During that extremely tense time, millions of tons landed at Tempelhof, making the facility by far the biggest cargo airport in the world, if only for less than a year.
      But the whole world was lifted by the air cargo story in Berlin.
      Who knows how many young men (and older ones, too) were bitten by the inspirational story of an around-the-clock air cargo airlift that actually breathed life back into a great world city.
      During this time, it can be confirmed: Tempelhof saved Berlin. And thus, Berlin continues to save Tempelhof.
      The next chapter for Tempelhof started when East and West Germany reunited in 1989, with Tempelhof becoming the home of private aviation and attracting a number of commercial airlines to operate there.
      But the death knell had already begun to ring in the late 90’s, when the city opted for a single airport concept.
      Now currently rebuilding and enlarging the already sprawling Schoenefeld, Tempelhof is closed, followed by Tegel soon as newly constructed “Berlin Brandenburg International” (Schoenefeld) is inaugurated.
According to the set schedule, this is expected to happen as early as 2012.
      Traffic experts argue that this single airport concept is highly opportunistic to mainly please the voters of the city’s leftist government.
      Tempelhof, they argue, was an indispensable vein for fast-linking the German capital with other cities, much like LaGuardia is to New York and Reagan is to Washington, D.C., as “close in” convenient airports that serve a need and make money all around.
      In Berlin, a ride by subway or cab from Tempelhof to the Brandenburg Gate takes about 15 minutes, whereas remote Berlin Brandenburg Int’l (BBI) is about one hour off the downtown area, both by public transport or taxi.
      What the Soviets failed to accomplish has now been executed by the mediocre coalition of Berlin’s Senate: the death of a legendary city airport.
      Tempelhof has been used since closing to host numerous fairs and events.
      The first major events included the BREAD & BUTTER fashion tradeshow in July [89][90] and the Berlin Festival 2009 concert in August.[91]
      It also hosts the Berlin Marathon fair each September.
      Fairs are held in the hangar.
      In September 2010, Tempelhof hosted the Popkomm, the international world’s music and entertainment business meeting place and was one of the most important locations of the first Berlin Music Week.
      Tempelhof today is being developed as a city park with an estimated €60 million allotted by the city toward developing, with an expected completion date of 2017.
      Last May 2010, the outfield was festively opened as Berlin's largest public park named "Tempelhofer Feld."
      More than 200,000 Berliners visited the park to enjoy its wide-open spaces for recreation ranging from biking and skating to baseball and kiting.
      Grün Berlin, a company that also looks after several other gated parks in Berlin, maintains the grounds.
      Plans are afoot to have Tempelhof host the 2017 IGA, Germany’s world horticultural exhibition.
      In the meantime, the grande-dame of all airports is still there, home to a rich history that was felt far beyond her gates, and remains among the greatest airports of the world.
Heiner/Geoffrey

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