“Bodacious” Jim Bellinder, United Cargo’s VP Sales Americas, is in the news this week. “Live With Five” is a breezy but thoughtful set of answers to five questions about the “Billion Dollar Baby” that is United Worldwide Cargo today.
       
What is the top priority right now?

      “Customer service is always our top priority, of course, and the latest development is United Cargo’s initiative to be more customer-focused in applying our resources.
      “We are making limited strategic changes in our business to support our customers and our frontline cargo employees.
      “This includes enhancements to our Customer Contact Centers, Customer Solutions Team, Business Partner Program, and Inside Sales Representatives based in several worldwide locations.
      “We believe customers will benefit from this more skillful use of our resources.”
       
What's next?

      “We continue to make great progress on the development of our cargo joint ventures with Lufthansa and ANA.
      “This work is happening ‘behind the scenes’ and everyone familiar with this type of effort knows that careful attention to a vast number of details is necessary to deliver the potential customer benefits.
      “United remains positive about the benefits not only for customer satisfaction and business growth, but because these two JV partners both have great people that are committed to cargo, their customers, and our partnership.
      “I often say that ‘people like to do business with people they like and trust,’ and we all genuinely like, trust, and get along with each other.
      “I think that will contribute to the success of the ventures and help us better serve our joint customers.”
       
Why are you bullish on United?

      “United is a great company, and what makes it great are the people that care about our customers and each other.
      “I see my co-workers doing extraordinary things every day that make me proud to be here at United.
      “The company’s response to our employees and wider communities devastated by the recent natural disasters, evidenced by our relief efforts in Houston, Miami, San Juan, St. Maarten, Mexico, and elsewhere, has been emotional and at times overwhelming to witness.
      “There are literally hundreds of unbelievable stories of United’s efforts to help those in need, and of our employees helping their co-workers.”

How are you handling the capacity gains?

      “We’re gaining some capacity with the delivery of more 777-300 aircraft.
      “But since we’re also anticipating a spike in demand in Q4, we’re working to make sure we “under-promise and over-deliver” during the upcoming peak season.
      “United operations leadership has spent a lot of time in the field implementing changes in our EWR and SFO hubs to prepare for the seasonal volume surge.
      “I really can’t say enough about the high quality of service we deliver every day, and we expect these changes will improve our service offering even more.”

How are you thinking about tomorrow?

      “While we concentrate on delivering on our current commitments, a substantial portion of our energy is focused on envisioning the future of cargo.
      “We have really sharp people on our team who are incubating some revolutionary ideas with the potential to change the airline cargo business in exciting ways.
      “These are folks with no investment in the way our industry has done things in the past, and they also possess the technical expertise to make these innovations successful.”
Geoffrey