It was perhaps inevitable that the swift and dramatic response of air cargo during 2020 and 2021 has offered logistics dividend celebrity as a “glamour industry.” Even Boeing is selling freighters having announced a “December Surprise” this week from UPS of a reported 160 new and used” B767 freighters.
     UPS has often arrived at Boeing’s door on a white horse and in some cases even saved the day, like once when Big Brown bought a couple B747-8Fs that we recall kept that production line open.
     You could hear the sigh of relief all the way from Seattle.
     Right now an assortment of crystal-ball gazers whose official positions presumably endow them with rare divinatory powers are pouring over results from 2021.
     Flushed by the cargo industry’s recent impressive advances, well-regarded personalities—emboldened by growth rate statistics and swept up in the excitement of chatting up cargo while strapped in first class—have donned the conical hat of the seer, predicting a phenomenal future for air cargo.
     Bill Boesch has always been the common sense voice in the throng. From the early days at Seaboard World and at Pan Am Clipper Cargo; serving as President of American Airlines Cargo for Bob Crandall, as logistics specialist at Operation Iraqi Freedom where he was recognized with the USA Medal of Freedom for his dedication and service, and most recently as a key player at Operation Warp Speed, Bill Boesch for more than a half a century has been in the thick of the movement to advance air cargo at the airlines wherever he has served.

     For air cargo 2021 was a year of change.
     The virus catalyzed air cargo and freighters into the limelight.
     While that has been continuing, air passengers are slowly coming back in fits and starts and hence thebelly capacity that normally accounts for about 60 to 70% of overall air cargo lift has been slow to recover.
     At the same time the various COVID-19 attacks have altered consumer purchasing patterns from retail brick and mortar stores to internet as millions have migrated to online shopping, giving dramatic rise to cargo companies like Amazon, FedEx and UPS.
     That was the bright side for air cargo for 2021.
     But like Star Wars, a dark force is at work here at the same time.
     Air Cargo freighters are expensive to operate driving rates upward.
     At the same time many old line retail companies have gone out of business while others have had to reduce their number of retail operations as people have stopped going to work for fear of becoming sick.
     That situation continues not helped much by governments ongoing compensation offerings replacing paying jobs that over time has the net effect of weakening several countries economies.
     The passenger airlines continue to suffer despite governments who were already not subsidizing them continuing to providing financial assistance to keep them alive.
     The big question is not what nor why 2021 happened, but what will happen to air cargo and freighters ahead in 2022 to 2025?
     My holiday wish for everyone is that whatever lies ahead helps promote world peace so that our children and grandchildren live a life in a safe and prosperous world.

Bill Boesch
President & CEO
Cargo Logistics Solutions