air cargo India and ATC Aviation Services AG made big news today at the big Mumbai event.   Competition was hot and heavy and when the dust cleared there on the stage accepting the coveted air cargo india Award as Highly Acclaimed GSSA were from left Dagmar Hanau, ATC Group Marketing Manager, Ingo Zimmer, ATC CEO with the great Jane Vaz, Manager Sales - India. Here up where they belong are the ATC air cargo "Stars of India"!   We asked Ingo to share some thoughts as to the why and how ATC has experienced its meteoric rise and as usual he was at no loss for words.

     Can you imagine something more buoyant than this? You are in the air and this is your message: “Hi Geoffrey, this message reaches you from 10.000 m above Turkey on my way to Mumbai thanks to LH FlyNet®.”
     That was on Sunday night February 11; our friend Ingo Zimmer, the epitome of the accomplished GSSA, took advantage of the relative tranquillity of thought that even the busiest businessmen find when they fly high in the sky, to share his view of last year and the year ahead at ATC, answering our questions.

FT:   What surprised you? Moving over to ATC where you deal with several resources there are challenges can you describe how you handle them?
IZ:    Challenges are what we need to have a satisfying working life. To deal with and to understand the needs of more than just one airline, to work with close to 100 of them is a challenge indeed, believe me. Different products and strategies, different mentalities of our customers, but also our employees working for ATC in 30 different countries is a cultural challenge requiring clear vision and a lot of understanding, but it surely is the best job in the world!

FT:   What are the most important aspects of what you do?
IZ:    In order to keep our customer happy and create value in their value chain we try to be the best in whatever we do. We try to be always fair and honest, whoever we deal with. Each and every customer is always treated as the most important, there is no second-tier customer for ATC.

FT:   How is the business climate? Can you offer a 2023 wrap on the various markets activities of ATC in some detail? What lies ahead for 2024?
IZ:    2023 was a year of flat tonnages for our customers like for most of the stakeholders in our industry. Compared with 2022 the yields shrank by 30%, but for most of the destinations they are still on a better level than in 2019. China rates out of Europe almost dropped down to the low pre-COVID levels. Towards the end of the year however demand recovered, December being the best month of the year; in January 2024 our global tonnages are already 30% above those in the same month of the previous year. February shows a similar trend and the global PMI is also up. These are very positive signs.

FT:    What is the key aspect of a successful GSSA. What do you bring to that effort that makes a difference?
IZ:    The key aspect of a successful GSSA is a combination of several elements in fact: state of the art technologies, including digital services, clear strategies and standardized procedures, but still a strong sales force and network, with a keen eye on the developments happening in our industry and the expectations of our customers. Data is key and with our PowerBI Data Lake we make sure our sales teams and customers get all the relevant information.

FT:   How has COVID changed us? What are you doing day to day that is different? What will never change?
IZ:    Covid has driven the grade of digitalization in our industry a lot. Home-office work is strongly established in our industry now: from Europe to the USA all our teams have the choice to work a couple of days from home. This makes us also very interesting as an employer. Our fellow co-workers enjoy a more rational employment when they are active, saving the time wasted in commuting and cutting costs at the same time. And, last but not least, this is a way of improving our carbon footprint. Whatever comes we try to be prepared: blizzard in the USA, public transport workers’ strikes in France: it doesn’t really matter much, we can handle it. You just need the company laptop, mobile phone and access to the company intranet and you’ve got access to the reservation system and whatever is needed to do your job.

FT:   At Air Cargo India you have a group of people to speak with. What do you consider the main points you want to get across to them about yourself and ATC?
IZ:    At ATC we have a strong global network and . . . yes, we do also have a set-up in India. The Air Cargo India exhibition gives us the unique chance to meet the local forwarders and shippers and our Indian team. Most of the airlines represented by us and potential new airline customers will be around. A perfect chance to have face to face meetings. Maybe it is worth thinking of India almost as a continent rather than a country. We are talking of the place in the world which will become not only the most populated, as is already, but surely one of the most influential in terms of our future economies.

FT:   Are you satisfied that women and other minorities in air cargo 2024 have continued their progress moving on up in management and responsibilities?
IZ:    We are not yet where we should be: our industry is still dominated by males, but we can see it is getting better, more and more top positions are headed by women and there is no reason why this tendency should not progress. In ATC we value gender equality: this is a solid part of our code of conduct.

FT:   What are some things ATC as GSSA is not only proficient in but clearly better equipped to handle in air cargo? What can your experience contribute to better the industry?
IZ:    Our sales proposition is a mixture of many elements, obviously the human factor is always very important, but having a strong global network, the high grade of digitization, the unique data pool, more than 50 years’ experience, clear working procedures and . . . As I said the most important factor is human: our team which is carefully recruited and they benefit from a positive work ambience. People are still our biggest asset and there is no mistake to be made on this point.

FT:   What would be on your wish list that you would like to happen in the air cargo business moving forward in 2024?
IZ:    There is still room for more digitalization in our industry. APIs between Airlines/GSSA and forwarder are key and here we are just at the starting point and progress is slow.

FT:   What are some of your favorite eating establishments and what makes a great restaurant?
IZ:    In order to be my favorite restaurant it must offer good quality food and an excellent service. This is actually not too far from what is important in our industry: excellent products and service.
MLS/GDA