One of our regular customers and friends will take part in Air Cargo Europe 2025: United Airlines. United’s connections with Europe have always been very functional and its integration in the European market has always been well-designed and easy to use.
     Looking at UNITED Cargo’s website you immediately have the impression that everything is easy. That is an achievement in itself, if you compare it with other portals where stress-free is not really your first impression… In United’s case you build your own account and continue to your booking as though you had the invisible hand guiding you. In fact, we did report about this new feature at the end of last year.
     In February this year we published an article where we explained why Jan Krems, President, United Cargo and Vice President, United Airlines is a great leader. In his answers, all perfectly aligned to give due credit to his team, Jan did not mention what we consider one of his most significant achievements: he makes you feel at ease. In a world where we feel unsettled most of the time, this is probably the greatest achievement.
     It was a little more than ten years ago when Jan Krems started at United, quite a journey in so little time. Jan is Dutch and I believe this is connected with the idea of taking things in the right way. Making things easy is institutional for the Dutch. I still remember my great mentor Han van Os of Fenex, the Dutch freight forwarding association, who was the mastermind behind me taking my job at CLECAT in Brussels. When I was in trouble with some difficult positions or in doubt with regard to what could and could not be proposed to our members, he always had a clear, immaculate way of putting it down before my eyes and then he concluded his explanation with: “So simple is it!” That was his catch phrase for making everything run smoothly. His advice was instrumental to make me see things in their effortlessness, if approached in the right manner.
     From some points of view something similar happened to United after Krems took the lead: United Cargo effortlessly established their leading position. We learn from Jan Krems’s bio on the UNITED Cargo website that he “is President, United Cargo for United Airlines, the world's leading airline. In this role, he is responsible for all aspects of United Cargo's operations, customer service, sales and marketing activity, revenue management, product quality, and technology solutions.”
     We had contact with Jan even before he joined United, as “prior to this position, Jan was Vice President Americas for Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo, where he was responsible for the company's operations, customer service and sales in North America, South America, Latin America, Canada and the Caribbean.”
     We are also told that “Jan joined United after a 27-year career at KLM Cargo. While with KLM, he served in a number of leadership positions including Vice President Asia and Vice President Europe, Africa and the Middle East. As the company's Vice President Worldwide Customer Service during and after the merger with Air France Cargo, he was responsible for the integration of all Air France and KLM cargo offices, aligning processes, cultures, IT systems, and people on a global scale.”
     With a degree in commercial economics from the Utrecht University and a post-graduate degree in marketing, combined with his hands-on approach in business, Krems is the right man in the right place to accommodate United’s shareholders’ ambitious programme. If you want to have a peep at the airline’s expectations in the near future, you could watch the last three minutes of Scott Kirby’s interview in “Face the Nation” recently. This is the man who arranged his “sixty second” transition from American Airlines to United. With hindsight one could say that it was a pretty consequential sixty seconds’ intermission . . .
     Ups and downs are the norm in the airline business and in recent times there was no bigger shake-up in the skies than the pandemic. In this article you can see figures that will explain to you that taking things in the right way is key to resilience, a result that speaks for itself in United’s case.  One way or another taking things in the right way seems the recipe with United’s success.
     Getting back to Jan Krems, “when he's not jet-setting, he spends most of his time in Spain, where he enjoys growing grapes (although he admits that the wine is still undrinkable). In addition to his passion for winemaking, Jan resides in Spain with his wife and four dogs and loves playing padel in his leisure time.”
     In early-May an Italian newspaper published the news that United was expected to become the world’s leading airline on the Italian market and a whole new business class offer will pave the way to return flying to JFK from Italy. Being Italian I could not pass the news without comments, but I am sure this is not the only update we can expect from United in the near future. Let us see what happens somewhere else . . .
     Looking at air cargo on the other side of the American landmass, SFO has been recently propelled into a new dimension and these are United’s words to describe their expectations in future: “Looking Ahead: Future-Ready Capacity – As we build on today’s momentum, even more capacity is on the horizon. A new, state-of-the-art cargo complex will introduce expanded handling zones, automation, and higher throughput to support the evolving needs of California’s supply chains. As a hometown carrier, United remains committed to innovation, operational excellence, and keeping freight moving—efficiently, reliably, and always forward.”
     This proposal will have its appeal in Munich and no doubt United will show their complete portfolio there and then. Jan Krems will be in Munich. Perhaps you may wish to visit and see how your air cargo package can get a boost? Jan managed to put together a collective cooperation in United that always shows a winning card, wherever it is played. 
     Collecting collective success can even be a swift operation in United hands . . .
Geoffrey Arend with Marco Sorgetti