| Lufthansa
Charter Celebrates
Ten Years
 While
everyone is raising high the roof beams in celebration of 100 years
Of German Air Cargo this year, another milestone worth noting just occurred
on October 1, as Lufthansa Cargo Charter Agency celebrated ten years
to the day since its founding.
Lufthansa Charter, headquartered in Cargo
City Süd at Frankfurt Airport, operates a global network of distribution
partners as a wholly owned subsidiary of Lufthansa Cargo, with competence
centers in Chicago, Dubai and Hong Kong.
LCCA is also a heart and soul resource
for the global shipping industry, well known and respected for its tenacious
can-do attitude, and also for its great people, acknowledged as the
best in the business.
Whether it is an emergency shipment, a
special handling assignment of racecars or other high value consignments,
Lufthansa Charter answers the call better than any other company in
the charter business today.
Although the company is operated as an
entirely separate entity from Lufthansa Cargo and is a consistently
profitable enterprise, as decade two begins, Lufthansa Charter gets
the attention and support of its parent in any situation, including
those best of times/worst of times moments when an aircraft is needed
before the next heartbeat.
“We are a family company,”
says Reto Hunziker, LCCA Managing Director.
Mr. Hunziker is only the second managing
director the company has ever had.
Its founding MD, Christian Fink, now off
on a new venture at Lufthansa, is today Managing Director of Handling
Counts and can be found at any one of the several social events LCCA
hosts each year, including the legendary Summer Party annual customer
event.
 Talk
about bringing the family together: the Lufthansa Charter Summer Party
was first held in Darmstadt at a lovely 1920s-era petting zoo called
Vivarium, and just this past July in a 12th Century castle. It’s
all about the kids of the company itself and the many customers who
travel from around the globe to attend this wonderful event.
“Sure, all the employees of Lufthansa
Charter Company have a job here, but they also have a kind of spirit
of togetherness and helping one another that is unique to air charter
and works in many ways to make this company different from all others,”
Reto says.
“These folks are not just my employees
and subordinates; they are my family,” he added.
“We have done a good job so far.
“However, we all know that this
is no time to relax, there is still a lot to do.
“I’m most proud that most
here welcomed me and understood and embraced our new philosophy and
the new approach.
“Just in the past year, we inked
several new landmark pacts, including one with Platinum Air Cargo, and
opened a sales office in Miami.
“We are spreading our wings.”
Christian Fink, who is founding Managing
Director LCCA and served in that post until 2007, recalls:
“Actually, the history of cargo
charter flights within Lufthansa goes back to the days when German Cargo
Services was founded specifically for that purpose.
“As the late nineties arrived and
Lufthansa Cargo, as it is today, was founded, evolving to become one
of the leading (or the leading) scheduled network carriers in the world,
LH capacity for all the special flights demanded in the market became
scarce.
Christian Fink recalls:
“So three humble—at that time
still young and fresh—men, i.e., Martin Nosbüsch, Eric Erbacher
and Jürgen Stille, the remaining rest responsible for the charter
business, started thinking about their destiny.
“The concept they came up with was
the basis of what LH Cargo Charter is today: the combination of the
excellence of Lufthansa services and quality combined with the aircraft
capacity that perfectly fits the customer needs for the specific project.
“The idea quickly evolved into the
creation of a Lufthansa Cargo internal profit center and the growth
and success of this unit lead to the decision to give this part of the
business its own identity, market appearance and room to flourish.”
In 2001 as Lufthansa Cargo Charter Agency
Ltd. was born and started its business activities, the first "official"
MD of the company was the General Counsel of Lufthansa Cargo, who was
partly responsible for the administration of the founding process.
It turns out somebody was needed (and
nobody else was found) to fill in as a placeholder for the German registry
of companies, so LCCA was headed up by the aforementioned Christian
Fink.
The real, new charter-life started with
a welcoming house-warming party at the old Kelsterbach offices (at that
time, the only offices, but Chicago, Hong Kong, Dubai and the rest were
to follow soon).
Guests at the launch were the charter
group and their partners, LH Cargo board members and the supervisory
board of LH Cargo Charter. Speeches were given, exclamation marks were
set and the building remained filled with question marks as to where
this (ad) venture´s journey might lead.
LH Cargo Charter was LH Cargo´s
first "spin-off" company and the initial steps in that direction.
 Proving
their cases, great enterprises such as time:matters, Jettainer and others
were to follow successfully.
Christian Fink remembers:
“Quickly, with 40 flights on 747F
from Budapest to Memphis within 8 weeks (the area of the TV/video game-units
started!), first achievements could be noted.
“But even so, initially the group
seemed to remain somewhat in anxiety and hesitation, apparently waiting
for heavenly input of what and how to do.
“But the gang never stalled: in
the years to follow the exhaustive work of numerous brave women and
men developed and formed the dynamic, self-managing and refreshing group
of people that finally topped and awarded their efforts with achieving
more than 100 Mio Euros revenue in 2007.
“Many of them can be mentioned,
such as Eric Erbacher, who took the responsibility for launching the
Chicago as well as the Hong Kong office successfully, or Volker Dunkake
who formed and created the complete organizational and financial backbone
of Lufthansa Cargo Charter.
“Or Heide Enfield and Kirsten Giesow,
who brought the company into the market and in the news—and customers
to the Vivarium!
“Or Mischa Tauss, who created BORIS,
the electronic mastermind of the business.
“Or Sebastian Viereck and the late
Heiko Schindler, who obtained traffic rights permits in the strangest
corners of the world and at the strangest times of the day.
“The listing could be long continued,
and the stories about the most exotic charter projects would well fill
more than a warm Indian-summer evening in one of Germany´s best
beer gardens.
“But for sure, nobody should be
forgotten: not all the enthusiastic guys and girls in sales and services
that, together with the customer, create new charter flights every day,
nor the experienced and courageous operations-staff and load masters
that make all these special projects possible, and never the reliable
and trusted workforce in finance, administration and IT who—truly—keep
it all together.
“They all were and are part of the
history, the present and the future of this innovative and challenging
part of the air cargo business,” Christian Fink said.
“When we started,” comments
Heide Enfield, LCAC, head of business development and marketing, “our
charter clients often inquired to make sure their load was on a Lufthansa
airplane.
“Customer attitudes have changed
during the past years.
“Shipping today is a matter of hard
economics and less a matter of airplane loyalty than in past days, I
think.
“But customers want to know that
whatever the price, the consignment is in Lufthansa’s hands.
“Who is flying which airplane is
secondary,” Heide proclaimed.
“We are a pure service industry,
especially in the charter segment, says manager Hunziker.
“Our job is to listen to the customer.
“In that respect we have been remarkably
consistent every year since LCCA opened for business.”
Geoffrey/Flossie
|
Robert
Taylor, (right) Assistant General Manager at Modern Freight Company,
a Dubai-based sea-air specialist, said 2010 was the company’s
best year on record for sea-air. “Last year the volumes were
constant each month, whereas in the past our busier months are usually
during the normal peak season times,” he said. 
