SkyKing with Suman from the village of Sindhupalchowk, where many families have been rendered homeless.

(SkyKing In Nepal)—The humanitarian relief effort into Nepal is being hampered by a failing logistics network, which is in danger of leaving as many as a million people without adequate food and shelter ahead of the June monsoon season.

     The April 25th, 7.8 earthquake destroyed hundreds of thousands of houses and left large swathes of Nepal with no road access. Tuesday’s 7.3 quake caused further damage and landslides which have made road access even more difficult.
     The U.N. concedes that countless families in mid-hills areas and at higher altitudes have been rendered homeless, many without medicine, shelter or food, and have still not received any humanitarian aid.
     Multiple sources on the ground - local villagers and NGOs - also confirm that relief has also still not even reached villages which are close to roads and within just a few hours of the capital of Kathmandu, despite time running out before the monsoon season, which will make providing aid far more challenging.
     Chris Weeks, DHL Director for Humanitarian Affairs who heads up DHL’s Disaster Response Team (DRT) which has been helping the air cargo handling operation on the apron since April 27, called what is currently happening “The Perfect Disaster”.
     “We have a 7.8 earthquake in a poor mountainous country wedged between two strong wannabe superpowers [India and China] with a single runway international airport, no seaport and 15-day road links in a race against time to feed and shelter hundreds of thousands of people before the monsoon season starts,” he said.
     The logistics effort is also being hampered by bureaucracy, which is driving up the time it takes to truck into land-locked Nepal from India to over two weeks, instead of five days.
     The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), which is co-ordinating the humanitarian logistics for all NGOs, lacks funds, equipment and access to military assets.
     “We have a few civilian helicopters to find people in need,” said Alex Marianelli, regional Logistics Officer at the WFP. “For all of our operations, especially at higher altitudes, we need to first scope who needs help and where they are. But without enough helicopters this is difficult.”
     The UN’s effort has been further hindered after a UK aid package which included three Chinook helicopters ideal for deployment in Nepal were refused permits to operate. They remain on standby in India and their handling equipment, including a K Loader at KTM, stands unusable.
     As a result of the lack of trucks, and the bureaucracy experienced at the India-Nepal customs intersection, most of the inbound relief effort continues to focus on air freight.

     Nepal has only one international airport – Tribhuvan Kathmandu International Airport (KTM) – able to receive freighters. KTM has just nine parking stands and one runway. It lacks dollies, slave pallets and forklift trucks. The runway was damaged soon after the earthquake relief effort began. The upshot is a 196 tons landing and take-off limit which has pushed the emphasis on aid onto smaller IL76s rather than the larger freighters required. Charter costs for NGOs have soared as a result.
     The relief effort via KTM is also being hindered by geopolitics and red-tape. The rival militaries, including the U.S., are competing for landing permits and space and, despite the severity and urgency of the situation, passenger flights are still being given priority over chartered aid freighters by Nepali authorities. The result is that over 500m tons of relief cargo is currently awaiting delivery by air from Delhi. Hundreds of tons more is being also stored at airports around the Middle East.
     After Tuesday’s earthquake multiple freighter landings were cancelled and reports received by FlyingTypers yesterday and today reveal a working environment at KTM that is not improving.
     One charter representative on the ground told FT today that the difficulty of organizing permits had in fact further increased in recent days with Nepali authorities requiring full cargo details and AOCs from consignees before granting permits. Even when permits are secured, they are often subsequently cancelled.
     “If anything, the situation is getting worse,” said the charterer. “They cancelled my slot and many others’ yesterday. We are still hitting a brick wall everywhere we turn. I’m running in circles trying to get all the correct paperwork.”
     A spokesman for Volga Dnepr said the company appreciated the enormity of the humanitarian challenge the Nepalese authorities were dealing with. But he added: “It is very challenging to get slots and landing permits and this is resulting in delays in terms of the transportation of aid into Nepal.

     There are a lot of different authorities involved in what is a complicated process to obtain the necessary operating authorizations. Obviously this makes planning very difficult, particularly when aircraft are also committed to other customer flights around the world.
     “We operated another flight into Nepal this morning and we have a permit for a further flight in the next few days. No other flights are currently planned but this is obviously a very fast-changing situation and given our expertise in humanitarian and aid flights we expect to receive more requests in the coming days and weeks.”
     Marianelli said that, as things stand, the WFP did not have enough assets to reach communities unable to walk to major roads. “Near the Indian and Chinese border there are entire communities and no one can get to them in the traditional ways,” he said. “When the cold weather comes, they are in trouble. We need to do this in the next three weeks, but in some entire regions I only have one helicopter to scope them. At the moment we think 1.4m people are highly affected and need relief now. How many are totally isolated is a picture I’m working on. But we’re running out of time.”
SkyKing

Editor's Notes: SkyKing is working with a charity to raise USD $50,000 for Nepal humanitarian efforts. This will be enough to feed and provide shelter through the monsoon season for almost 600 families in Sindhupalchowk, many of whom have been left homeless.
The devastation to the morale of Nepalese citizens is difficult to quantify, but after having been struck not once, but twice, it can only be assumed the citizenry is in the direst of straits. If you would like to donate, please click here:

      Shortly after Nabil Sultan emerged on the world stage as Emirates’ “newly appointed Divisional Senior Vice President, Cargo July 1, 2013,” he headed to the United States to meet staff and customers. We met up with him at SkyCargo John F. Kennedy International Airport before that fateful exercise got underway.
      Thinking back on that time, we recall that the only top air cargo executives we had ever known at Emirates SkyCargo were Ram Menen and Peter Sedgley, so prior to meeting Nabil we didn’t know quite what to expect.
      At the time, the presser from EK stated that Nabil was an Emirati educated in the U.S., so our spirits and expectations were raised about the opportunity to work with a native UAE person in commercial aviation.
      It became clear very quickly as we spoke with him that he was a man of considerably more grit and substance than that of a token appointee or someone who was just in the right place at the right time.
      While reserved, quiet, and even studious, Nabil is also quite the cool customer.
      Smart, refined, and always listening more than speaking, Nabil does not appear to be the least bit intimidated inhabiting the top spot of the biggest emerging international airline in the world.
      No doubt Ram Menen, who emerged as a darling and icon of the air cargo industry, was a tough act to follow.
      But by charting his own course and believing in himself and his team, Nabil has emerged as a force indistinguishable from SkyCargo itself, as the Dubai air cargo juggernaut continues its torrid growth in international air commerce.
      Directing focus on the product rather than the man might turn out to be the smartest thing Nabil Sultan could have done.
      But you don’t have to talk to him very long before Nabil Sultan is telling you through his actions to “watch what I do.”
      Nabil has remained tasked towards keeping priorities straight, including the well-publicized movement of the entire 14-freighter fleet to the new Dubai World Central Al Maktoum International Airport.
      We spoke to Nabil Sultan inside the big, multi-storied Emirates stand at Munich last week. As the clock ticks steadily toward his second year in the driver’s seat at SkyCargo, it is clear he is feeling quite comfortable these days, delivering seamless operations whilst operating between two airports at hub Dubai operations. He now seems comfortable expanding his interest and involvement elsewhere.
      “Things are going well, markets have been better in 2015,” Nabil emphasized.
      “DWC has been a blessing for us as we have managed to move some of the capacity out of congested DXB.
      “As cargo continues growing, we have been able to stabilize our freighter operations at DWC.
      “Things look good from an operations point of view and we are quite pleased,” Nabil said. “Much of our effort during my first years here has been to both expand and refine our Dubai hub.
      “At both facilities today, Emirates SkyCargo has the right processes and people in place.
      “We were able to greatly strengthen our team with the addition of Henrik Ambak to the position of senior vice president, Cargo Operations Worldwide; he joined us from Cargolux late last year,” Nabil said.
      Ambak was a huge “get” for SkyCargo for his expertise and well earned reputation at Cargolux directing cargo and ground handling, trucking, standards and procedures, network delivery, ground safety, ULD management, Customs and e-Business, as well as IT systems used by the commercial division.
      Henrik stepped in less than half a year ago and is responsible for all Emirates SkyCargo’s hub operations at Dubai International Airport and Emirates SkyCentral at Dubai World Central, as well as the operations at more than 140 outstations across the world.
      “Henrik is a great addition to our team,” Nabil said.
      “Emirates continue to expand both our passenger and freighter operations,” he added.
      “We have one more freighter (B777) aircraft coming in August of this year.
      “SkyCargo begins a weekly freighter service May 27 into Columbus, Ohio, our 48th destination in the worldwide freighter network and sixth in USA.
      “We think Columbus serves as an ideal alternative point to Chicago where shipments originating or destined to the mid-west can be trucked much more efficiently,” Nabil added.
      Nabil Sultan says that very little has surprised him in his experience in air cargo to date.
      “There are many areas that need to be addressed, including processes, information, and innovation, but the ongoing question is always how do you effectively innovate and get to where you want to be without any dramatic shifts in quality and service?
      “There are technologies—including mobile booking, for example—that will make the air cargo business even more competitive and effective.
      “Air cargo has got to be easier to do business with.
      “The world has moved, and we are doing business at a time when others in IT and elsewhere are looking into what we do and may challenge us.
      “Business wants innovation in every aspect of the experience so air cargo must lead or will be forced off the side of the road to tomorrow.”
Geoffrey

Oliver Evans
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   Take it from us: the air cargo visionary, the air cargo pundit extraordinaire, will always be around. His thoughts leap time to a yet unrealized future.
   First there was the 18th century balloon, which could lift a person several hundred feet and bring them back safely to ground. But the air cargo seers of that day perceived the balloon as a potential carrier of farming supplies over much greater distances. Ben Franklin was rumored to have considered the balloon for long-haul mail delivery. And early in the 20th century, there was the airship, which inspired prophesies of tons of freight soaring past ocean vessels to global markets. On its tail was the airplane, which performed the cargo services that the airship did not, and now there are a few pundits daring to predict realities in a supersonic era.
   Those individuals blessed with far-reaching foresight on matters related to air cargo have been joined by a new small handful: air cargo’s drone watchers.
   The basic facts as we know them at the present time are that: the Federal Aviation Administration is seeking to regulate commercial drones; the current commercial drone, about four pounds in weight, is confidently expected to increase many times in size and weight; major businesses are already aware of the drone’s potential link to their service patterns. All of which bring our favorite air cargo visionary front and center.
   What does he see that most don’t yet see! He sees normal same-day delivery services of retail establishments expanded scores, possibly hundreds, of miles; corporate and operational links between drones and both air and motor carriers; fitting the winged robot into convenient parking areas.
   Whatever specific course the commercial drone takes, our favorite air cargo seer is willing to bet dollars against doughnuts that we are witnessing the start of a brand new, emerging industry.
Dale Gregory