German Cargo B707F, one of four operated in 1977. By 1988, one former German Cargo B707 found a new home and a nicer paint job working for Bill Spohrer’s Challenge Air Cargo, based in Miami, Florida.

   FlyingTypers has learned that German transportation giants Lufthansa Cargo and Hapag-Lloyd AG will meet on January 14 at Hapag’s headquarters in Ballindamm (Hamburg) for a meeting titled “Air Freight Meets Sea Freight.”
   The session is sponsored by Aviation Events, a German company.
   The speakers will be CEO of Lufthansa Cargo Peter Gerber and CEO of Hapag-Lloyd AG Rolf Habben Jansen.
   While the session is one thing, thinking about air and sea for a moment cannot help but raise some “what ifs” regarding a joint venture between Germany’s preeminent air & sea cargo resources.

Bel Étage

   The idea that this duo will gather on a Bel Étage—as the French describe a “beautiful floor”—may tickle some imaginations; the prospect of what might be a second go-round for a convergence between Lufthansa and Hapag-Lloyd AG might also stir up some memories.
   Back in 1975—the year Air Cargo News FlyingTypers went into business—we recall that Lufthansa Cargo and Hapag-Lloyd AG were working toward a joint venture that eventually led, in part, to the formation of German Cargo.
   Lufthansa created German Cargo as a non-IATA airline to sidestep the IATA edict limiting cargo flights out of Germany.
   These were heady days for big ideas in transportation, with people like Lufthansa’s legendary air cargo genius Siegfried Koehler (right) involved in the mix.
   For Hapag and German Cargo, it was thought that an air and sea alliance might open the door to unlimited new possibilities for global shippers.
   Instead, for whatever reason, the deal fell apart, although German Cargo gained a number of shippers and lasted as an air cargo resource before being integrated into Lufthansa Cargo in 1993.
   So as it is said, what goes around comes around. Maybe this latest linkup between Hapag-Lloyd AG and Lufthansa Cargo will turn out to be just a couple of suits talking it up for the hometown faithful in early January.
   In any case, the meeting seems more than an accident of fate and, in light of history, a bit ironic, since both outfits are face-to-face and cheek-to-jowl beset by unacceptable losses in 2015 whilst scrambling for new possibilities in 2016.
   It will be interesting to see what, if anything, is next.

S’posin’

   It was less than five years ago that Lufthansa Charter was sold to Chapman Freeborn, so it would seem unlikely that Lufthansa Cargo would go back into that business.
   But one never knows, does one?
Geoffrey