(Exclusive Krasnoyarsk)-Punctuality, discipline and reliability—these attributes are generally associated with German people and their industry.
     Last Thursday (June 4) this was proven once again by Lufthansa Cargo and its maiden flight from Frankfurt via Krasnoyarsk Airport to Osaka in Japan with 59 tons of air freight on board.
     It was 11:59 am when the craft touched down at the Siberian airport for a technical stop. ‘Exactly one minute prior to schedule,’ nodded with satisfaction Christian Becker, the carrier’s regional manager Russia and CIS countries.

Let ’em Eat Cake said Marie Antoinette, and the dreamers and doers of the world have never stopped. Here as all-cargo flights began from Krasnoyarsk came another slice of life as (left to right): Herr Ruhnau, Minister Pashkov, KJA Airport Director Kondratiev, and Bernhard Kindelbacher of LH Cargo celebrated the event.

     The new routing is a result of a severe political controversy between the governments in Moscow and Berlin. The trouble began with Russia forbidding LH Cargo to cross Siberian airspace unless the carrier would land for a stopover at either Krasnoyarsk or Novosibirsk airport. In retaliation Germany threatened to ban Aeroflot from its sky and territory.
     This happened in fall 2007. After this eruptive political occurrence over aviation matters both sides came slowly back to normal and sat down together to mutually straighten things out for a resolution to the problem. Eventually the German side agreed on transferring Lufthansa Cargo’s operation from Astana in Kazakhstan to Krasnoyarsk as soon as the infrastructure at the Siberian airport would be brought up to technical standards to guarantee smooth operation even with poor weather conditions. This has been accomplished by setting up an instrument landing system (Cat. II) that provides precision guiding to any landing aircraft in case of fog, heavy snowfall or hard rain.
     “We spent 10 million U.S. dollars for installation of the ILS,” stated Denis Pashkov, Minister of Industry and Energy at Krasnoyarsk’s regional government. Lufthansa Cargo invested roughly €2.5 million euros for necessary technical equipment at their new Siberian hub.
     There the MD-11 freighters are only allowed to be refueled and line-haul maintained after having touched down. Further activities are presently prohibited due to the restrictive aviation treaty between Russia and Germany.
     “This has to be changed to allow Lufthansa Cargo commercial activities in addition to technical services. The carrier should be able to unload and load shipments at Krasnoyarsk by officially legalizing this,” claimed former Lufthansa CEO Heinz Ruhnau who came to Krasnoyarsk in his present role as Russia representative of the German airline. Minister Pashkov backed his initiative by announcing his strong support for liberalizing the bilateral treaty.
     Presently LH Cargo operates seven weekly flights via the Siberian city of one million inhabitants. Commencing in July, when Astana will not be served any longer, this will go up to as many as 22 flights per week.
      “By then we are going to deploy all flights between Europe and Fareast via Krasnoyarsk,” announced Bernhard Kindelbacher, Senior VP Network at LH Cargo.
      “By routing our aircraft via Krasnoyarsk we save 12 minutes in average each flight. “This saves fuel and hence money and it diminishes air pollution because of less fuel burn,” Herr Kindelbacher added.
     According to Heinz Ruhnau, Lufthansa is currently not eager to lure a Russian airline into the Star Alliance. This however, is a touchy topic after their exclusive candidate Air Union went broke. It has left Star Alliance without a local partner for interlining passengers at Moscow or other major hubs.
      According to aviation experts it is a disadvantage compared to competing SkyTeam Alliance. SkyTeam has former Russian state carrier Aeroflot on board. Oneworld, the other alliance has announced that Siberia’s S7 Airline is scheduled to join their alliance soon.
      “Who says we need one partner? Maybe we’ll team up with two or three if necessary, to cover the Russian market,” Ruhnau indicated the newest strategic vision of the Star Alliance for playing an increasing future role at Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Krasnoyarsk.
Heiner Siegmund

Huchler Was Electric At CNS

     In case you missed it FlyingTypers’ parent publication Air Cargo News published in America since 1975 has now completed one year as the air cargo industry’s first global virtual monthly with original content and full- featured capability.
     In a tough world business climate here is the most efficient, fastest way available on the planet to talk to the entire world air cargo industry.
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     Here is a story created exclusively for our recent May 2009 issue.
     We invite your inquiries, comments and other input.
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     But once again leading the way in a new century communications format, Air Cargo News looks forward to all challenges while further serving the world air cargo audience with all new original content every month.
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     As the 2009 version of IATA’s CNS Partnership Conference met last week in Carlsbad, California, it seemed the respite from the economic downdraft must have been lifted by a breeze and carried out to sea.
     Predictions were many, but no one, including the well-esteemed keynoter former American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall (profiled elsewhere in this issue) was sure of much outside of the fact that air cargo, like the rest of the world, can look forward to more economic challenges. Mr. Crandall intoned that everyone might as well develop or continue to refine their approach to business. The ultimate goal is to fall like felines, our business bodies twisting so that we can land feet first when this dark economic time eases.
     At CNS Partnership there were many panels and a rich parade of well-meaning air cargo professionals who discussed various scenarios.
     The commencement of sessions discussing Cargo 2000, CASS, E-Freight and other topics of unique common interest drew a picture as to why this conference has become a must-attend A-list event, along with World Cargo Symposium.
     Simply put, CNS Partnership is without parallel, and one of the best upper and middle management level annual air cargo networking events on the planet.
     Nowhere else can you meet and rub elbows with as many top level managers of the world air cargo enterprise all in the same place.
     During CNS there were meetings and sub-panel events that underscored the importance of the conference itself.
     While CNS Partnership is a great place for carriers and forwarders to get close, it is also a great place for conferees to conduct their own company meetings.
     So in addition to getting, say, a USA sales team on the same page, managers can walk around and talk up ideas and programs while measuring reactions to schemes and dreams amongst a concentration of peers not found anywhere else.
     That is exactly what happened in many cases during May 3-5 in Carlsbad, California.
     As mentioned, there were many speeches and presentations, but our favorite was an early morning talk by Thomas Huchler of EMO Trans, a midsized USA forwarder.
     Mr. Huchler spent much time outlining the needs and hopes of both EMO Trans and other smaller and larger companies as TSA cargo security edicts tighten.
     He also praised and entreated CNS to deliver a square deal for the smaller forwarders.
     But at one portion of his speech, Mr. Huchler began to tick off some ideas that might actually be useful out of the box for people in the audience.
     “We have 26 offices as properties that we either own or rent.
     “We looked at the rented units and went to each landlord, offering them a bit of our reality as an air cargo business in 2009 with the idea of renegotiating our leases.
     “The results were excellent.
     “It may be hard to believe,” Herr Huchler said, “but in most cases landlords would rather accept less as a viable alternative to empty warehouses and office inventory.”
     As Herr Huchler spoke (he also talked of EMO realizing some great opportunities in Mexico), we wondered if the import of his words was sinking in to an audience that half filled the hall.
     Glancing around the room, we noted that very few conferees were flipping or fooling around on their cell phones or PDA’s. A good sign, we thought.
     In CNS Partnership’s deliverance of a forum for conducting business and networking, they also provided a place for sharing some of the best practices for advancement of air cargo.
     The reaction here in a snap survey amongst several attendees was positive uplift.
     But we are still wondering if some people from that session took the advice home and contacted their landlord to paraphrase that ubiquitous personality from the movie “Network”:
     “I’m sick and tired of paying too much and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
     It was an extraordinary moment in a year when the best and worst of times should long be remembered.
     At CNS there was also time to think about things apparent but perhaps not always properly contemplated, a time to see what condition your condition was in.
     We were walking with Jim McKeon, the new cargo boss at Continental Airlines. After conducting a video interview on Tuesday, May 5 (which can be seen elsewhere in this issue) we were trolling for lunch.
     CNS had put up a Cinco de Mayo spread out near a pool that seemed too good to miss and was, in fact.
     As we walked along Jim noted some deep purple flowers clustered in bunches that traced the length of our path and wondered aloud what they were.
     We asked some people, including employees, if anybody knew what the flowers were called, when a thought occurred:
     Here is a top executive with a huge daily lift to business enterprise and thousands of customers and employees underneath him.
     The pressure to deliver might make it possible for Jim to flatten the flowers like Superman with a mere glance of his powerful vision.
     But, it seems at CNS Partnership, there is time and space for Mr. McKeon to stop and smell the flowers.
     Maybe some part of what we take from CNS Partnership 2009 should be that we all need each other, no matter how big or small the person next to you may be.
     CNS Carlsbad paid forward at a time when air cargo needed it most.
     As an industry we should try to listen and help each other, taking time to wonder and always, discovering . . .
Geoffrey/Flossie Arend

Patel India's Aviation Builder

Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel (second from right) at the inauguration of the new International terminal building at Jaipur Airport on February 25, 2009.

      Those India general elections also delivered a second term to Praful Patel as Minister of Civil Aviation.
     Whether or not the reprise will be as successful as the first go around is yet to be determined.
     Mr. Patel is confronted with an industry losing money and international shippers losing patience with airport infrastructure that is backward to the point of exasperation.
     But on the upside, what is certain here is that the last five years have seen civil aviation growing by leaps and bounds.
     Many people here feel that much of the credit for this unmatched period of growth goes entirely to Minister of Aviation Praful Patel.
     As he begins his second term, Praful Patel has been rushing about from one corner of the country to another, laying foundation stones for the modernization and upgrading of some 35 non-metro airports.

Air India is selling 11 of its Airbus A320 planes as new planes from Boeing Co. and Airbus are delivered while adding 15 more new Airbus planes to its fleet in the current financial year that began April 1, according to reports.

     Minister Patel emphasized that the number of airports serving India is rising from the present 85 to around 400 in the next 10 years.
     As he told Air Cargo News/Flying Typers:
     “We have 500 passenger airplanes and nearly 85 operational airports now.
     When I began in 2004, we had 110 aircraft and 45 airports.
     “We need to build airports for all of India by going into to the remotest regions so that our farmers can look at exporting agricultural and farm-related products to the world.”
     This time for India will come," he forecast.
     Five years of the Praful Patel regime in Rajiv Gandhi Bhavan (the headquarters of the Civil Aviation Ministry) at Delhi have changed the aviation scenario and that includes air cargo.
     “Continuity with change” are the new watchwords of Civil Aviation Ministry, says Praful Patel today (June 8).
     Three key areas in focus, Mr. Patel said are safety in the skies, building up of more and better infrastructure and strengthening Air India.
     Patel declared that the government might consider bringing out an initial public offer (IPO) to jack up funding Air India but it would not be aimed at diluting the carrier’s public sector character.
     But all of what is to come can also be viewed in what Patel has built as a record here since 2005.
     Air Cargo News FlyingTypers asked two important stakeholders in the air cargo business for an impartial assessment of the Praful Patel years.
     A freight forwarder of repute, the Mumbai-based Raajeev Bhatnagar of UTi Worldwide is all praise for Minister Patel’s role in promoting the growth of the air cargo industry.
     He said that India has indeed come along way since independence.
     “We are almost in the 19th year of the post-liberalisation era.
     “India has had a great run through these 19 years, and almost every sector has seen growth,” he said.
     It is only in the last few years that the country’s skies have opened up, with Praful Patel spearheading a bulk of the change.
     “He has done a lot, and we think that under the given circumstances (a multi-party government), what he has accomplished is no mean stuff.”      Bhatnagar specifically mentioned cargo and said that Minister Patel is the first Civil Aviation Minister who understood cargo, and its role and importance in the aviation business.
     “He was the first to recognize the importance of airport infrastructure and steered privatization.
     “We have seen the benefits of it, and through his efforts I think he has set a tone for what one can expect for the future.”
     Bhatnagar, however, has a grouse.
     “How could a minister as understanding and appreciative as Praful Patel miss to provide industry status to the cargo business, or bring cargo under the aviation umbrella.
     Unfortunately, even today, it is slightly unclear as to where the freight forwarders belong,” he said.
     The express industry too has found the Praful Patel years beneficial.
     Said Anil Khanna, Managing Director, Blue Dart:
     “Air cargo and, in particular air express distribution, is a barometer of industry and economic health.
     “In more mature economies, where air transportation is the prime mover of high-value goods, there is a co-relation between air cargo and GDP growths, with air cargo growing at approximately a multiple of 2.3 times GDP.
     “This is not the case with India, because of the lack of focus on the sector.”
     “The lack of focus has resulted in negligible growth of infrastructure.
     “Despite the slow growth, Khanna said, “we are glad that the government has realised the potential of the cargo industry in India and taken up the issue of infrastructural challenges seriously.
     “The government has robust plans in place, which would enable us overcome bottlenecks while providing cargo stakeholders greater opportunity to facilitate trade and commerce in the country.”
     He was, however, quick to point out that despite Praful Patel’s pro-active approach, challenges remain and much work lies ahead for the Minister’s second go around.
     “Infrastructure, both air and surface, continues to be the main hurdle for our sector.
     “We are constrained by the sizes of the facilities at the airports, as they have remained the same while our loads have increased fivefold.
     “In addition, parking bays, airside/city side access and traffic congestion adversely impact costs, as well as service quality. Volatility of fuel prices is also a concern.
     “The government also needs to address cumbersome customs clearance procedures,” Mr.Khanna said.
     Praful Patel never at a loss, seemingly is ready with his eyes fixed firmly on the prize.
     “The time of one airport for a region is gone.
     “Now we have to look at a situation where one airport will have to compete with another for business.”
     Ready or not the next chapter for India commercial aviation just took off.
Geoffrey/TG