Right now many of
the world’s cargo executives are gearing up to attend the 9th IATA
World Cargo Symposium (WCS) scheduled to take place in Shanghai, China,
from March 10-March 12.
Those, at least, are the official public
dates for WCS, since some invitation-only events begin on Sunday March
8 and continue past the public sessions meetings until Saturday March
14.
Each WCS has an event brand, and for this
year it is “Improving the customer experience.”
That certainly is fitting, since IATA has
had issues in the past to identify who the airline’s cargo customers
are and what they want—IATA’s struggles with FIATA coming
to mind.
Without pointing fingers, it can be said
that when the airline interest group IATA sued the forwarder’s interest
group FIATA in 2010, something was amiss with regard to customer experience.
 All
This & Heaven Too?
IATA’s Global Head of Cargo Glyn Hughes
has promised an exciting event and lots of novelties in an IATA TV spot
that aired on YouTube.
That may be needed to boost attendance,
since China promises attendees cumbersome and bureaucratic visa requirements
and high costs for attendance-related expenses for European attendees,
and the U.S. might not position Shanghai among the most popular meeting
cities in the universe for 2015.
Interestingly, the publication Smart Meetings
did rank Beijing amongst its top 15 venues for this sort of event in 2014.
Certainly the question of whether or not
it is worth the expense of attending depends on one’s business.
If you’re an airline, ground handler,
or air cargo service provider (be it ULD manufacturer, IT provider, or
GSA) then the answer might be “yes” simply because your customers
are there and networking opportunities at the WCS are known to be one
good reason for attending.
If you are a forwarder or shipper, the answer
is “likely no” since air cargo, even more than other businesses,
tends to move in closed circles.
That, exactly, may be a part of the problem—this
event is billed as the World Cargo Symposium and not the World Airline
Cargo Symposium.
That being said, as the biggest driver of
airfreight growth, China could no longer be ignored, so it was certainly
politically correct to hold this event in the People’s Republic
of China.
Keeping Track
Two of the WCS tracks will be held in Chinese:
“E-Cargo in China” and “China Logistical Challenges.”
Fittingly, the other side will be served
in English during the “China International” track where, according
to Glyn Hughes, one can learn “how to do business in China.”
The list of session tracks at WCS is of some interest to airlines and
related businesses especially in further understanding the needs and expectations
of the stakeholders across the table.
Promises
Promises
First and foremost, IATA has promised to
cut 48 hours from the six-day transit time of the average air cargo consignment.
But IATA will have to drive e-freight to
further acceptance, especially by various nations around the world.
Looking at the numbers, a case can be made
that IATA also still has to prove and convince its claim of the associated
benefits of e-freight to air cargo industry stakeholders.
It’s good to never forget that IATA
2010 forecasts called for 100 percent e-freight at the end of 2014—ultimately
22 percent was achieved, and the 2015 target is 45 percent.
No Slam Dunks
While IATA is an interest group and subsequently
is unable to enforce certain standards to its members, it can develop
and roll out “best business practices” and recommendations
that it believes airlines should adhere to.
Media Madness
A bit of a surprise is the contingent of
20 or so cargo-related accredited media that will no doubt be standing
by to pounce on cargo captains in the hallways and coffee breaks between
meetings in Shanghai.
Leading the onslaught is the non-stop drumming
of IATA’s official media partner.
As of last Thursday, over 30 e-mails (by
one count) with invitations to a WCS awards banquet were sent out—enough
for most spam filters to act up or at least deliver a cyber bloody nose.
Our take from the first eight WCS events
is that none, in fact not even one of those events has generated anything
like a breakthrough or, for that matter, enough real news, as our old
friend Pete Spaulding used to say, “to fill up one eyeball.”
Sure, in 2014 it was IATA in “The
City of Angels” and the Mayor of Los Angeles, a high-powered politician,
gave a good speech last year at WCS, and Fred Smith, FedEx founder, polished
and delivered a stump address, which had essentially already been heard
elsewhere, as he stood before a packed house in Century City.
It’s good to remember that these IATA
meetings are organizational annual events mandated in the trade group’s
charter that the airlines must attend.
IATA figured out that by expanding the airline
annual meeting and branding it World Cargo Symposium it could showcase
its various activities by putting an intense spotlight on its lusty (and
expensive) menu of training and instructing and printing of various manuals
business activities.
There’s nothing wrong with that, we
say.
But the fair question, especially with a
rich and varied collection of at least a dozen industry and specialized
air cargo events on the boards for 2015, would be: is the IATA World Cargo
Symposium worth the aforementioned time, travel, and expense?
Let’s
Face It
IATA itself is campaigning for FACES, the
“Future Air Cargo Executive Summit.”
A prize for the best innovation idea, this
aims at rejuvenating the industry, but most likely the prizes will go
to someone affiliated with one of IATA’s partners or one of the
“usual suspects.”
We recall an IATA “best idea gambit”
after the 2010 WCS held in Vancouver.
We sat next to a harried top executive aboard
a trans-con flight back to LaGuardia and listened to him bitch about the
then IATA air cargo boss Alex Popovich asking if anybody had any ideas
at a closed meeting of air cargo airline chiefs.
“I am stuck in China running a failing
airline and attended WCS to learn something and they (IATA) are asking
me for good ideas,” he said over and over for nearly 3,200 miles.
Funny thing about history: it most often
repeats itself.
Funnier perhaps is thinking about these
things as hope springs eternal, and thus always seems ready to have a
reserved seat for another go at another show.
Stay tuned.
Geoffrey/Sabiha
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