FlyingTypers has learned that one of the greatest builders and leaders in modern air cargo history, Ram Menen, Senior Divisional Vice President, will retire in June 2013. He has served at the helm of Emirates SkyCargo since start up.
     The announcement came in the following simple and typically straightforward letter, which we received this afternoon.

Dear Friends,

     Just to let you know that after nearly forty years of being in the business, as I come of age and still being in good health to get to know what life is, I have decided to take early retirement, hang up my hat, to spend some quality time with family and friends. The last 27 years with Emirates has been a great ride where I am honored to have been able to create/work with a great team of passionate and hardcore professionals. Having started from base zero in 1985, from the numbers coming in for 2012, Emirates SkyCargo has now become the largest airline cargo operator in the world. I guess my work here is done! I leave a very strong and great able team behind. They will always be a part of my family as you all will. I have also been very fortunate to work with some of the best folks in the industry and made many great friends. I have also been able to learn from the best.
     Some of you have known my intention of doing this for some time, and some of you might have heard this as rumors. I have now done it and am hoping to call it a day in June 2013. Luxembourg is going to be our main base with Kuala Lumpur as a satellite..... Malou and I intend to spend summer in Europe, winter in KL and also get some travels in to visit friends around the world.

Best regards,
Ram

aby, it’s cold (and colder) inside any one of four giant reefer rooms at The Lufthansa Cargo Cool Center at Frankfurt International Airport.
As early January moves inexorably toward a winter rendezvous, the degrees of cool that rule inside this place are mirrored in many parts of the world outside as well.
     But if anyone is still hot under the collar at what will be remembered as a tough 2012, you would need to look hard to see it in this busy, giant layout of container-filled rooms as each hums along, too cool for school.
     Take the case of Karin Krestan, Head of the Lufthansa Cargo Cool Center and the energetic and engaging boss lady of all things—temperature sensitive.
     Armed with a keen working knowledge of how the cool-chain must be handled and what appears to be more D-Cell batteries than that pink bunny could imagine, Karin Krestan oversees a 24/7 ballet—moving everything from the pharma and healthcare business through giant electric doors to aircraft waiting outside on the ramp.
     After spending an hour with this most professional lady, we kept thinking it was too bad our refrigerator at home (the one with the six inch rule—meaning if you consume something more than half a foot’s reach from the door, you’re on your own) doesn’t have someone with Karin’s expertise and sense of humor to come in and do a quick reboot.
     It’s the age of the onboard, self-contained cooling refrigerated containers, from Envirotainer to Opticooler, the brilliant invention of a local German company and Lufthansa Cargo that carries its own electronic brain and power pack to keep temperatures level at all times throughout transit.

     “Lufthansa has a vast menu of service offerings for pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, clinical trials, biotechnological material as well as temperature sensitive high-tech products, including temperature-controlled ground storage. However we are a ground-up cool-chain with appropriate cooling facilities, including our dedicated Cool Center operations here at our hub, Frankfurt, and also in other places such as Chicago, Johannesburg and Bangalore.
     “We offer temperature-ranges per compartment onboard the aircraft and road feeder services with temperature-controlled reefer trucks. Our innovative cool-chain solutions include reduction of transit points by operating via Lufthansa´s Hubs at Frankfurt, Munich and Vienna as well as a variety of containers that see specific services, including Ice Cooler for perishables mainly, Unicooler and Opticooler for pharmaceuticals and high-tech shipments.
     “Lufthansa Cargo transports approximately 56,000 tonnes of temperature cool/td-shipments very year.
     “Top routes for pharmaceuticals are from South America to Europe, Europe to Asia, and Europe to North America.
     “The pharmaceutical industry is developing rapidly and is a major focus here as growth figures in the next few years ahead are quite positive.
     “Where, prior to 2012 when this center opened, we handled not only perishables but also our Cool/td consignments at Perishable Center Frankfurt (PCF), the necessity for the new pharma-zone (driven by capacity limits at PCF) now has the consignments being handled in our own dedicated facility, offering our products Cool/td-Active and Cool/td-Passive consignments as well as temperature sensitive Dangerous Goods at the best possible conditions.
     “The Lufthansa Cargo Cool Center is equipped with state-of-the-art cool storage rooms for four different temperature ranges, exclusive ramps for delivery and goods acceptance, an exclusive Competence Center Temperature Control (CCTC) supervision team on call 24/7, and an exclusive service provider, handling:counts.
     “Another advantage is that our pharma-zone coolchain solution at Frankfurt is located within the security hub and has direct access to the apron.
     “This guarantees short distances and minimizes cross-transfer between different facilities.”
     Karin Krestan began her career at Lufthansa working on the passenger side, but before long her professional training as a medical nurse took hold and after reading about the Cool Competence Center some five years ago, Karin was immediately fascinated at the possibilities of bringing her firsthand knowledge of pharma and vaccines, plasma etc. to work, building the Lufthansa offering while still located at PCF.
     “I discovered right away that the pharmaceutical industry very much likes talking to someone who has working knowledge and understanding of the medical arts in such matters as temperature sensitivity of certain pharma products: for example, how to handle insulin.”
     “We are quite accomplished in our business here but are still at work improving our offering, including product development and always refining features to better serve our customers.
     “But it is most important that we offer regularity—i.e., staying away from critical situations associated with any fluctuation in temperature for the goods we move through here.
     “Keeping things on a steady beam requires constant monitoring, which we do at a special 24/7 desk, and that offers temperature monitoring and mapping.
     “We also hold meetings that are conducted both internally amongst our team members and externally with our customers to develop the best systems and practices that interface via computer with shippers.
     “They can track much of the same information about their shipments that we are also watching, including current conditions and delivery schedules.
     “This two-way contact keeps everybody on the same page with complete transparency and no surprises.
     “We are also quite proactive in getting the word to our customers at once if a delay or something else occurs.”
     We wonder how Karin first became a nurse, recalling that at one time back in the early 1920s, all flight attendants serving aboard line aircraft in America were nurses. This was at a time when the ride aboard, say, a Ford Tri-Motor could get rough enough to warrant medical attention.
     “I worked in the local hospital in Darmstadt as a nurse’s aide during my student years.
     “I just got used to the work and liked the interaction with the patients, how the hospital operated, and I guess I never forgot that time.
     “I spent three years working in the Emergency Room, where the real action is.
     “Then a close friend was hired as a flight attendant at Lufthansa and I thought that working for this airline would be an interesting career.
     “But having just given birth to my first child, working aboard aircraft and travelling would not have worked, so I was hired here to work on the ramp.
     “After a few years on the passenger side, I moved to the Lufthansa training center in Seeheim, where I then began teaching what I had learned.
     “One of the more interesting aspects of teaching at Seeheim is the opportunity to attend any of the classes offered there, including training on how to be a station manager for Lufthansa anywhere in the world.
     “From that training I was able to work as a replacement manager in some interesting stations, including Kenya and Russia, before finally making my move to Lufthansa Cargo as head of aircraft handling.
     “After going to air cargo there was one more move to the passenger side before finally advancing to this opportunity to go back to the future, utilizing and uniting my time in the medical arts with my love of aviation at Lufthansa.
     “So things have gone full circle, but I really love this job.
     “Five years ago when I began here, my team included six men; today our team includes six women plus 15 men.”
     We wonder where is the equality in that and not missing a beat, Karin says:
     “I’m working on it!”
     After the laughter subsides, Karin gets serious and says:
     “What we are really doing here is creating a decent balance of the best and brightest, most dedicated people available.
     “All of our people contribute and are very dedicated to their work building Lufthansa Cargo Cool Center,” Karin Krestan said.
     As we leave this most interesting part of the mighty Lufthansa Cargo combine at Frankfurt Airport, a sticker that my Mother used to feature on the rear bumper of her VW Golf comes to mind:
     “Lord Love A Nurse,” it said.
     Now that we know one, we can understand why.
Geoffrey

Our Martin Changed Air Cargo

     If you want to learn about August Martin, the great air cargo pilot who flew for Seaboard World Airlines during the 1950’s, and was also the first black man to captain a U.S. flag air cargo airplane, you better plan on either using your old Funk & Wagnall’s Encyclopedia, or visiting the wonderful high school located near JFK International Airport in Queens New York City named in honor of the air pioneer.
     The name August Martin as an internet search, most often comes up as “August” 28, 1963, when “Martin” Luther King delivered his never to be forgotten “I Have A Dream,” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
     This August Martin, a gentle man would go down in history as the first African American to serve as Captain on a U.S. scheduled airline.
     Put another way, before “Augie” as his friends called him, there had never been a black airline captain on the bridge of any U.S. flag airline.
     Although he flew for other carriers, including El Al Israel Airlines and a company called Buffalo Skylines between 1946 and 1955, it was Seaboard World Airlines, an air cargo company, which hired Augie and broke through a glass ceiling in American culture.
     Air cargo put a great aviation pioneer, who happened to be black, in the left seat.
     August Martin, who was born in 1916 had aviation blood in his veins.
     He worked all his life to be a pilot, training as a youngster to fly small prop jobs and later during World War II as a front line Mitchell B26 bomber pilot.
     He also took training at the Tuskegee, Alabama base, which spawned the legendary black pilots who gained fame as The Tuskegee Air Men.
     While awaiting his big break with a scheduled U.S. flag carrier, Augie worked as a stevedore on the New York docks to make ends meet.
     But when SWA came a knocking, August Martin was ready.
     For the next thirteen years Martin piloted the legendary all-cargo aircraft of SWA, including the Lockheed Constellation, Canadair CL44 swing-tail freighter, Douglas DC-4 and DC-6 among others.
     August Martin was not just about breaking through for himself. Augie also gave back big time.
     Often, he would donate his off time and vacations, flying supplies to the impoverished in Africa, and other points of emergency and need around the world.
     On July 1, 1968 August Martin was killed aboard just such a flight when his cargo-laden aircraft crashed in a blinding rainstorm as he attempted to land in Biafra, Africa.
     Today, in modern air cargo circles not much is known or said about August Martin.
     Air cargo groups and organizations, and increasingly publications yearly name people to this and that “Hall of Fame,” blithely unaware that one of the truly, great firsts in the history of air cargo was a black man with the rank and responsibility of Captain of a great international airline.
     August Martin deserves charter membership in any air cargo “Hall of Fame.”
     Here was a guy who not only makes us proud, he makes us look good.
     History demands the truth.
Geoffrey

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