Vol. 10 No. 91                                                                                                                   Friday September 16, 2011

FRA Cargo Needs The Night


Frankfurt Special . . . Lufthansa opens San Francisco A380 service from Frankfurt this past May. Carrier serves both New York & Frankfurt daily with A380s.

     Lufthansa Cargo’s helm, Karl Ulrich Garnadt, (right) made his point very clear: “Without air freight, there will be no global economy.” At least, not the same one the world is used to today. This was the widespread consensus among the 220 participants that attended the recent Frankfurt meeting on “Mobility & Logistics,” organized by German newspaper Die ZEIT. In a panel discussion, Garnadt went on to say that his carrier applied for no more than twelve flights on average each night to and from Frankfurt, the carrier’s main gateway of operation during the upcoming winter schedule.
     “In comparison to our original 43 requested movements, this can’t be called much,” he said. LH Cargo needs this minimum of 12 flights to guarantee customers the flow of their goods on selected transcontinental routes, including the rapid transfer of transit shipments in the lower compartments of passenger aircraft. This highly sophisticated and tight-knit supply chain is in danger, however, and might be torn apart soon. The reason for this is a possible night flight curfew that might be imposed at Rhein-Main airport by the country’s highest administrative court.
      The upcoming verdict is hanging like the sword of Damocles over the heads of LH Cargo and the entire cargo community. If this curfew is imposed by the judges to “better protect the airport’s neighbors from further noise emissions,” the consequences will be severe, says Karl-Friedrich Rausch, (left) Deutsche Bahn’s executive board member and head of logistics giant DB Schenker.
     “Given that situation, the more than 50 million euros we invested in good faith, that there would be 24/7 uninterrupted traffic flows into our facility at Frankfurt’s CargoCity South, was wasted money.” Plan B then comes into effect: cargo flows will be trucked from German airports to Amsterdam, Paris or Liege and consolidated there as these places offer continuous operation day and night.
      Last year, Schenker accounted for 180,000 tons shipped via Frankfurt. “These are big volumes that mostly need freighter lift to be moved. Lower deck capacity isn’t sufficient for transporting the majority of these goods,” Herr Rausch stated.
     But is it really necessary to fly in flowers from, say, Ecuador or Kenya to Europe, especially with greenhouse emissions and the global warming aspect? This was a key question raised during a panel session. Answered Garnadt: “We are flying this produce due to broad public demand. No more, no less. If not done by Lufthansa Cargo, others would step in right away to take over the business.”
     Looking at the CO2, balance he added that the carbon footprint of flowers grown and fertilized in the Netherlands is 6 percent higher compared to those produced and harvested in Kenya. Environmentalists are not aware of this fact, however, or at least don’t mention it when questioning the air transport of lilies, roses and other floral African or Latin American produce. William Flynn, (left) CEO of Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, Inc., pointed out that consumer trends can change but this takes time.
     A fast reduction of aviation greenhouse gases could also be achieved by offering the industry sufficient airport capacity, thus avoiding planes that wait in holds for landing permission. Not only does this unnecessarily pollute the air, but it also costs carriers like British Airways, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM a fortune, sending their kerosene bills going through the roof.
     “What we badly need is a more intelligent utilization of the existing infrastructure,” suggested Deutsche Post’s CEO Frank Appel. As example, in London Heathrow, DP’s logistics pillar, DHL Express, bundles all shipments for retailers in Heathrow’s passenger terminals, in a sorting and distribution center three miles outside the airport. From there the goods are trucked to the retailers at certain hours. This avoids jams, reduces pollution and noise, and guarantees timely delivery.
     In Germany “we have plenty of infrastructure, but we could use it better than we’ve done so far,” Appel said. Airports are equipped with runways, aprons, terminals and cargo facilities. To build all this has cost taxpayers a lot of money. “So why are most of them restricted to operate only 15 or 16 hours per day?” he asked. This is a waste of infrastructure and money. At least the big gateways like Frankfurt, for instance, “should allow traffic around the clock,” urged the Hamburg-born manager. There was nobody in the conference room who objected to his sentiments.
Heiner Siegmund

 

 Mr. Asuman Kiyingi, Minister of State for Regional Cooperation and Acting Foreign Minister of Uganda greeting Shri M.Hamid Ansari, the Indian Vice President on his arrival at Entebbe International Airport, Uganda on July 08, 2011.

    “India and Africa not only share a common history, but also a common future—a future of development and prosperity. We in India understand that to realize this common future, we need to work together today.      The opportunities that the modern world brings can be fully exploited only by an enlarged India-Africa relationship,” pointed out Gurjit Singh, former Indian Ambassador to Ethiopia, and now a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of External Affairs, when commenting on India-Africa relations.
     It is this India-Africa relationship that saw Indian Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh announcing a financial assistance of $5.7 billion for a wide range of initiatives, from capacity-building and human resource development to investment in Information, Communication and Technology (ICT). To add to that, private Indian investment in Africa is providing the relationship more muscle.
     The India-Africa relationship received a boost recently when India recognized South Sudan as an independent nation. The presence of Hamid Ansari, India’s Vice President, in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, for the independence day ceremonies was noticed by the African leaders gathered at the event as a sign of India’s interest to deepen ties with the mineral and resource-rich continent, according to Sanjay Singh, Secretary, East, in the Ministry of External Affairs.
     Keeping pace with these diplomatic links and business investments, cargo carriage between India and the African continent has increased substantially over the last few years. According to Exim Bank’s Chairman and Managing Director T. C. A. Ranganathan, India-Africa trade has gone up seven-fold in the last seven years. Last year, for example, the trade went up to $45 billion. The forecast is that the figure could go up to $70 billion by 2015, with air cargo and ocean freight volumes expected to grow at over nine percent annually.
Gone are the days when most of the cargo went to South Africa and the nations in the east like Kenya and Uganda. Today, air cargo has new destinations in central and western African. In fact, India has been exporting approximately 6,000 tons of goods by air to the African continent every month.
     It is no wonder, then, that airlines like Emirates have been pushing forward to strengthen operations to destinations in Africa. Ram Menen, Emirates' Divisional Senior Vice President Cargo, pointed out that there was potential to increase cargo capacity between Asia and Africa. The major reasons for that were the Indian and Chinese investments in various projects in Africa. According to Menen, trade between India and Africa has gone up four fold in the last five years. However, the impediments to air cargo growth were many: while cargo facilities needed expansion, there was also a necessity to move ahead in communications technology, etc.
     Even so, almost 50 percent of the exports from India are directed through Mumbai and Ahmedabad, and the rest comprising auto parts, pharmaceuticals, etc. are sent through Hyderabad and Chennai.
While freight forwarders continue to look forward to rising tonnages between the major international airports and African destinations – mostly carried out by African and Middle East-based airlines – the paucity of direct flights has been hampering their growth. Often, urgent consignments have to be sent via Europe hiking costs.
Tirthankar Ghosh

 

Whose Queue In Hamburg?

     They equipped themselves with food, beverages, folding chairs, blankets and pillows. Hundreds of aviation enthusiasts that wanted to get a ticket to ride on the mammoth Airbus A380 “air boss” camped out for the chance. The demand for a boarding pass was so overwhelming, and the opportunity so enticing, that these enthusiasts spent the night in a passenger terminal so they could be right on time when the ticket office at Hamburg Airport opened Wednesday morning at 9:00 clock.
     The A380 hype was triggered by Lufthansa, which publicly offered two one-hour long round trip flights over Northern Germany and the nearby North Sea on one of their A380s. The flights will be conducted September 25, when Hamburg Airport officially celebrates its one-hundredth birthday in a huge weekend-long party in which everybody can join.
      “Unfortunately, quite a few of the aficionados that queued up and waited patiently for hours hoping to get a place on board of Lufthansa’s mega flyer had to go back home empty-handed, since the demand exceeded the available seats by far,” stated a spokesperson of the airport. All in all, exactly 1,052 tickets were available, 526 per trip. Eco seats (numbering 420) were sold for 39 euros, business class (98 seats) cost 99 euros and the 8 first class chairs were offered for 199 euros.
     Ironically enough, every Airbus A380 is partially manufactured in the European plane maker’s Hamburg plant, making French Toulouse and the German metropolis the natural hometowns of the world’s biggest plane. At Hamburg airport, however, this aircraft is generally not seen since so far no airline deploys an A380 on its scheduled Hamburg flights.
     Now, Dubai-based Emirates will be the first by putting one of their “air bosses” on this route. It’s an scheduled flight that will be conducted only once in view of the airport’s centenary. EK 059 will land at 1:40 pm September 24, with a feast already in full swing. That’s one day prior to Lufthansa’s big A380 show.
Heiner Siegmund

 

     At the 9/11 Memorial at the World Trade Center site on the first day it was open to the public September 12, 2011 in New York City, visitors make rubbings from one of the panels with the names of the victims of the September 11, 2011 terrorists attacks.      Looking ahead access to the memorial is free, but will be tightly controlled with visitors needing to obtain passes in advance, entering at specified times.

RE: Air Cargo 911-91111

Geoffrey,

      As you know, I have long been an interested reader of Flying Typers, and in my travels occasionally miss an issue or part thereof, so if that's the case here let me apologize in advance.
      As I read through the very moving articles that the industry contributed, I saw none from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey - which provides and maintains the most consistent, permanent and integral components of the regional air cargo community - the airports.
      No airline or any other air cargo related business suffered any greater pain or personal loss that day.
      I worked for the Port Authority for 27 years and worked in One World Trade Center for 20.
      I watched the towers come down standing next to Bill Decota and other aviation staff at an airport conference in Montreal, and let me assure you that very few of the writers of the stories you have compiled could understand what Bill and his staff felt in a darkened conference hall wondering how many of their closest friends and associates were gone, and the terrible frustration and helplessness of it all.
      This note has no place in your "ground-breaking series", but I would suggest that the end product would be far more meaningful if this omission were addressed and the product included perceptions from Port Authority who lost so many good people that day.

Dan
Daniel B. Muscatello
Managing Director, Cargo & Logistics
Landrum & Brown

Dan,

      Thanks for writing.
      Thanks also for sharing your memories of that terrible day.
      I cannot speak to how people comprehend a shared experience, but I do know that no one knows how anyone else is affected by tragedy, and there is no possible way to quantify whose experience of the 911 tragedy was sharper or more painfully felt, and certainly not with comparisons. It’s pretty safe to say that everyone suffered a loss.
      I think you are in fact correct – there should be stories from the point of view of people who worked for the Port Authority. I am with you – I don’t know why there weren’t.
      We ran an invitation, along with the stories, in every issue of FlyingTypers that featured 911 to 91111 for three months, encouraging anyone to write in their experience. All readers of FlyingTypers were welcomed and encouraged to send in their thoughts and feelings.
      We received over three dozen responses and ran every single one without reservation and with minimal editing.
      We have a couple more, in fact, running next week, and a compilation of the entire set will be featured in an upcoming issue of Air Cargo News Digital.
      Your letter is, of course, welcome here and we salute and grieve with everyone that was impacted and suffered as the result of 911. Thank you for writing in and providing that different perspective, as you are the first person with connections to the Port Authority to have done so.
      Our hope is that you will reach out in a similar fashion to the people you feel were underrepresented or overlooked.

My most distinguished greetings,
Geoffrey

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Last Day Of Summer

     If you’re anywhere near New York City right now, you can feel it: the end of the season. It happened seemingly overnight; the sun, while still bright, has surrendered its fangs to the wind, which whipped through town last night with the sharp bite of autumn. We aren’t sweating anymore, quite the contrary – we’ve lit our first fire and bundled up in long sleeves and heavy blankets. All that’s left are the candy colored trees, shaking and showing off their prismatic bouffants in the brisk, fall breeze.
     Here we mark the end of Summer 2011 with an idyllic picture of a United Airlines airplane at Manchester Airport in the UK, folks lazing away a hazy day, watching the birds from a ringside seat inside the “Airport Viewing Park.”
     Once upon a time, before thousands of people showed up daily to fly somewhere, most people would go out to airports in the summer to watch air shows or catch a glimpse of airport operations.
     The lure of watching arrivals from familiar destinations and takeoffs to places yet to be discovered holds special fascination for many of us.

     Another favorite is this 1930’snapshot of a couple and their porter outside of the 36th Street Airport (later called Miami International Airport), pondering the daily flight schedule before entering that beautiful terminal and hopping aboard an S38 bound for Havana.
     Is it us, or did Summer 2011 really scream by this year?
     Now it’s autumn: baseball and football and time to stock up on the firewood.
     For air cargo, it’s the run up to Christmas and airport cargo club monthly meetings and Air Cargo Americas in Miami in early November.
     But here we say goodbye with a salute to the sweet, soft touch of summer and a deliciously funny & energetic video from Virgin America that, to us, sends a spirited hello to the rest of 2011 and many happy seasons ahead.
Geoffrey/Flossie

 

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