IATA Cargo Network Services (CNS) has lost its second President in three years, with no replacement in sight: Michael Vorwerk has quit and returned to Lufthansa, which led to immediate speculation at the recent CNS Meet that Dave Brooks might be tapped for the post.
     Super Dave retired as President of American Airlines Cargo on May 1.
     The people we talked to said Dave would bring stability, style and class to an office at CNS that has become a revolving door since the retirement of Tony Calabrese, who served as CNS President for 22 years.
     Interestingly, as CNS was shutting down its event last week, the last word went to Mr. Brooks, who said:
“Still few carry the torch for many to reach the full potential and deliver benefits to the industry.”
Geoffrey

     Even as we file this report, Air India’s pilots remain away from their duties for the seventh day (according to the airline, 250 are on strike, but as per Directorate General of Civil Aviation, 341 were “sick”).
     With this strike underway, Air India has gone from national airline to international embarrassment.
     The recent pilots’ strike has effectively reduced the carrier’s chances at revival. With no end in sight—both the government and the pilots are adamant about their “justified” stands—the only people who have been left to suffer are passengers who have valid tickets but no flights: at last count on Day 7 of the strike, 13 international flights were cancelled overnight. So deep is the anger against the carrier that passengers in Mumbai blocked the road outside Mumbai airport in protest against Air India’s inability to inform passengers about flight cancellations. In fact, there are reports that the government has decided to cancel all international flights until the crisis is over.
     Whatever the decision of the government, it is now certain that even after the strike ends, Air India will continue to face tough times. The strike is happening at a time when the situation was starting to look slightly better for the carrier. The government promised an injection of $5.8 billion through 2020. Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh had even gone to the extent of forecasting that Air India would make an operating profit by 2018. To top it all, the government also approved the carrier’s plans to add 27 Boeing 787 Dreamliners and three 777s.
     There were plans to enhance the services too. In fact, Air India had decided to wet-lease aircraft for at least five more international flights, taking the number of daily long hauls to a dozen. According to officials in Air India, the management had sent out requests for wet leases and had received a dozen-odd offers.
     Amidst all these arrangements to boost the number of flights, the management seemed to have sidestepped the pilots issue, which has been troubling the carrier ever since the 2007 merger that created one of the largest airlines—fleet-wise and employee-wise—in the world. The immediate spark for the strike was due to the management’s decision that pilots from the erstwhile Indian (Airlines) had to be trained with those from Air India for the Dreamliners, the first of which will be inducted in the fleet later this month. Air India’s pilots fly international long haul routes and do not want the “domestic” Indian (Airlines) pilots to be trained on the Dreamliners. When pilots from the “two organizations” flew out for the training, Air India pilots struck work in protest.

     Five years after the merger, the pilots’ issue is just one problem that has troubled both airlines. Cabin crew, administrative, and other officers (along with junior staff from both airlines) continue to squabble over salaries and allowances. As one of the officers put it rather bluntly: “The merger has only given birth to problems. When we see colleagues from the other airline doing the same work that we do and getting more, there is a lot of heart-burning.”
     Perhaps what is most important is that there is a question mark on the government’s $5.8 billion package. The package comprising basically the Indian taxpayers’ money is, incidentally, linked to the carrier’s performance, which includes increasing revenue earned from carrying passengers and cargo, enhancing customer satisfaction, and employees assuming responsibility to implement the financial package.
     Naturally, banks that have lent out the money are a worried lot. Some of them have already expressed concerns with the strike continuing to disrupt services. The strike has seen a whopping 30 percent decline in daily earnings from international passengers: Air India carries around 8,000 passengers every day, earning about $2.8 million a day from international operations, but the strike has seen the figure plummeting to $1.68 million.
     In such a situation, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh could only send out a tough warning to the pilots. He said:
     “Pilots need to understand that if Air India does not meet the performance yardsticks set in the plan, that money will not reach them. It's not a one-time deal… The government is not going to keep on pouring money into Air India anymore," Singh said, and pronounced, "Nobody is indispensable."
Tirthankar Ghosh/Flossie

     Every once in a lifetime (or in my racket, if you are really lucky, a couple of times), you get to talk to somebody who truly lights up the room.
     It is Ed Chism’s presentation, experience, wisdom, positive point of view, and cutting right to the chase that sets this air cargo executive apart.
     Ed has been in the cargo business since Lyndon Johnson was U.S. President and apparently has loved every minute of it, which made my recent talk with him in New York such a great experience.
     Now that I think about it, later this month another talk I had with KLM’s Jacques Ancher will run in these pages, and not for the first time.
     Air cargo has some really interesting individuals, both men and women, for which it should be thankful.
     It is our intention to try and talk to every single one of them.
     Today in air cargo, nobody is flying higher than Emirates SkyCargo.
     While we write quite a bit about Emirates, its people, and the places and developments of the airline, it’s safe to say that the EK SkyCargo story and product rarely (if ever) disappoint.
     We spent a very good afternoon recently with SkyCargo’s point man in America, Ed Chism.
     Ed is Cargo Manager North America and is also old-school air cargo, meaning he has been humping and moving freight around the world since he was 19 years old. Now some 43-plus years later, he has managed to keep abreast of industry developments and finds himself where he always was, out front and leading the way whilst delivering valuable air cargo revenue to a great international airline from his base in New York City.
Sometimes the sweet story can be as exciting and memorable as any other.
     Ed Chism drives up in a sleek, low-slung BMW, an Emirates car that looks like something out of the movie The Transporter; a motor that appears to be in motion even while parked and sitting perfectly still.
     We meet in a small Italian seafood restaurant over on Cross Bay Boulevard near JFK International in Howard Beach, just down the road from Russo’s where all the airport cargo events are held.
     The place is called Vincent’s and not only is this venue a genuine joint and one of the best places anywhere, the restaurant is also near the social club once populated by the likes of John Gotti and Henry Hill, the infamous mob stooge and subject of director Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
     Goodfellas, among other things, tells of the Lufthansa Cargo heist at JFK during a time when air cargo at the big airport was considered a personal shopping mall for neighborhood gangsters.
     But Ed and I were younger at the time, and while I was chasing copy and pushing deadlines for our original air cargo newspaper Air Cargo News, Ed Chism was well on his way to building a career after beginning as a mere lad at legendary Pan American Airways Clipper Cargo.
     Today with my tape recorder in hand (which is turned off when we really talk) we lose no time getting down to cases.
     “Pan Am was there at the beginning of so many things important to aviation and air cargo.
     “But Emirates picked up the flag of forward thinking and innovation on the first day in business and has never backed down a bit since 1985.
     “My view is that our DVSP Ram Menen is both a global leader in the business and also a visionary in air cargo.”
     Those words from Ed, who worked with many of the legendary leaders of air cargo, bear some further consideration.
     Ed worked with Bill Boesch, Thor Johnson and a host of others at Pan Am and around the world. He rose from an entry clerk at PAA to waking up one day and having the rather sad and thankless task of closing down Pam Am Clipper Cargo altogether at Building 67, JFK, when the great airline was finally grounded forever in December 1991.
     “I was always fascinated with airplanes and the airlines.
     “A friend of mine worked for American Airlines so I asked him if there were any jobs at AA and he said no, but that he heard that Pan Am was hiring.
     “So at 19 I went to JFK PAA Hangar 14, put in an application and they asked me if I could type and I replied:
     “‘Sort of.’
     “They told me there were some openings in cargo and although I wasn’t much interested in the field, I indicated interest, figuring that was a good way to get my foot in the door.
     “Air cargo is where I started and stayed for the past 43 years.
     “I worked for Pan Am for 25 years.
     “I had actually started in Building 67 the week it opened, driving a forklift in Import on the midnight shift with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
     “We were not automated much at the time except for the Flow Access System, which was basically the first FedEx system several decades before that company went into business.
     “Building 67 was designed for B707s so most cargo were small packages.
     “The system was not perfected, and when the B747s came on, we ripped it out so that we could build up containers and pallets and other unitized freight.
     “I did all the jobs and finally worked in a satellite unit in the passenger terminal that coordinated the freight on and off the flights as my first management experience.
     “Later as a supervisor and a duty manager in both import & export, I moved up to director of ramp operations at a time when JFK International was Pan Am hub for six B747 freighters.
     “At that point I was in charge of postal activities, cargo ramp, and also coordinating freight, both passenger and all cargo.
     “When in the mid 1980s Clipper Cargo headquarters moved from Manhattan to Building 67, my job under Thor Johnson was worldwide director of sales and services, where I served until the airline shut down.
     “Looking back, I learned everything at Pan Am.
     “From documentation to U.S. Customs to all the regulatory authority requirements to security, you did it all—you had to do it all and that was it.
     “I guess my entrepreneurial spirit was greatly helped along by that experience because just after the airline went out of business, I declined to join Pan Am II, preferring to open my GSA company at JFK International off airport in Springfield Gardens.
     “We had several companies that we conducted various tasks for, including consulting, but Emirates was among our first accounts, and eventually Emirates grew into our biggest.
     “Our association began with a presentation for Ram Menen, which he accepted.
     “In 1993, Emirates began booking air cargo in USA; as an offline carrier we had zero revenue as we began moving freight via interline partners from New York to Emirates’ London flights.
     “As my GSA company expanded, we set up two Emirates freighter flights weekly from JFK to Dubai.
     “Initially the freighter flights grew nicely in the scheme of things, as those flights were always full and continued up until Emirates began flying into New York from Dubai non-stop.
     “Today with direct service to Dubai from a growing list of gateways, we continue to build; Emirates SkyCargo is a 100 million dollar business in USA and growing.”
     It turns out that Ed Chism, counting his nearly 12 years as SkyCargo GSA and the past eight as a full time employee of the Emirates, has been associated with the carrier for nearly 20 years, matching his Pan Am experience as not only the person in the right place at the right time but also as an air cargo executive in many ways responsible for Emirates’ great success in the USA market.
     But there is not an ounce of doubt or a moment of hesitation as Ed declares:
     “Emirates is truly a great airline.
     “If you want to draw comparisons between Emirates and Pan Am there is no comparison from an air cargo viewpoint.
     “Emirates SkyCargo is far superior to anything Pan Am Clipper Cargo did or hoped to become, even in its heyday.
     “The team is just great, headed up by Ram who is both a visionary and a great leader.
     “Ram Menen knows where he wants to bring the airline in air cargo and beyond; he has a very clear vision of where the entire industry needs to be moving ahead in the 21st century.
     “He is truly unique in the world right now when it comes to air cargo.
     “We all are lucky that he is on the global scene the way he is, pushing for air cargo change and advancement in every aspect of the business, from e-freight to warehousing to security, you name it.
     “Of course, underpinning his effort and legacy is his work in building SkyCargo, which will stand the test of time.
     “The big challenge ahead is about the same as before, and that is getting forwarders and governments to endorse and practice utilizing paperless air cargo or e-freight.
     “Here, America is a good example of the problem of putting e-freight into practice.
     “In some cities you can do paperless business with exports, but not imports.
     “In other cities it can be the other way around, while in yet other USA destinations it can be all shipments or worse—not allowing e-freight as part of the supply chain process at all.
     “Everybody knows that for real change, there has to be a collaborative effort across the board, but no one seems to know how and when that will happen.”
     You listen to Ed Chism talk and realize that rarely (or maybe even never) has this highly intelligent and wizened air cargo professional come off the line of moving air cargo, to tell it like it is and express these feelings.
     Ed is all about business.
     Ed Chism loves to move air cargo, and although we learned that he was off on a family holiday after our meeting, we could feel that even then he was looking forward to getting back, to take charge as Emirates expands operations vigorously across the USA to new destinations, including Washington, D.C. coming this fall and most probably Atlanta and Chicago sometime shortly after that.
     Often during our afternoon together, Ed would say:
     “C’mon, let’s go outside and have a smoke.”
     Without a word we would stand outside the small restaurant and Ed would continue the conversation, cigarette in hand.
     It made me think of all the years everybody just smoked in business meetings with several cups of coffee, and how unusual it was that anybody was still smoking in 2012.
     But at one break, our waitress followed us outside and lit up a cigarette with us.
     So there we were, two smokers and one non, and I wondered aloud why not just put a table outside?
     “The USPS is moving to cooperate with UPU and ICAO to try and standardize some electronic rules and procedures,” Ed said, as aircraft overhead moved in from the Atlantic on a long aerial pathway that would take them to final just above Ed’s old Building 67, a route the pilots call “The Canarsie Run” after the Brooklyn neighborhood just below the approach.
     “Let’s face it,” Ed said, “change, whatever the need, comes very slowly to air cargo. Aside from some information technology driven by the Internet and newer handling systems that have come on line during the past twenty years, the air cargo business has not changed all that much over time.
     “You still make out airwaybills, do consolidations, and then book the cargo on a flight.
     “Pallets are still built and airplanes are still loaded as they always were in air cargo.”
     Today, Emirates SkyCargo serves six USA destinations and (falling under one of Ed Chism’s responsibilities) has a GSA working cargo in Mexico for the carrier.
     In addition to double dailies to Dubai from JFK, EK has a block space agreement via Liege to Dubai with TNT that moves an additional 250 tons a week, trucked into the airport from Chicago and elsewhere.
     “The new flights have been well utilized and we are looking forward to Washington (Dulles) coming in September with daily flights (B777s) into Dubai—that will help us accommodate Washington, Baltimore, Charlotte, Atlanta and more.
     “My thought is that eventually we might go to increased freighter destinations in USA as the market further develops.
     “But we don’t want to be bigger or broader-based just for the sake of size—our mission is superior service and unusual customer relationships driven by the brilliance of our people and the Emirates Mega Hub in Dubai.”
     We said goodbye to Ed Chism with some promises to get together again sometime.
     Now a few weeks later, through that conversation with Ed I can recall a time when New York was the center of the universe for some truly great air cargo executives who served the famous international flag airlines and freight forwarders, during an era when the top USA gateway was here—the jewel in the crown of any international air cargo business.
     These few dozen people in various positions, from the top to the bottom, seated in offices on and around JFK International Airport, changed history over decades, and (among other achievements) gave birth to industry groups like CNS and TIACA to create much of what we know today as organized air cargo.
     There is still some of that breed out there among us, like Ed Chism and others, who still report daily to JFK, and that is a great comfort to me.
     In Ed’s case, he has come all the way back to once again be a major air cargo force at one of the greatest airlines in the world.
     In air cargo, Ed Chism has already lived twice.
Geoffrey/Flossie

    We note that in San Antonio, Texas, this week ALACAT, the organization of Latin American agents, is holding their annual trade show May 13-16.
     Included in the ALACAT sessions are people who were sitting on similar panels last week at CNS Miami.
     One contribution serial trade show presenters could bring to every session takeaway would be to share with each new audience what they are hearing out on the circuit
     ALACAT, for example, would love the buzz, as would TIACA in Atlanta October 2-4, and other air cargo events yet to come.

RE: Peter Paul Colors South Africa Forward

Greetings Geoffrey:

     I recall your mentioning having met Mr. Sibusiso Peter Paul Ngwenya, but enjoyed even more your extensive treatment of that meeting in the recent FlyingTypers. What a remarkable story he shared with you upon having followed your instinct from the 'usual suspects' we've come to anticipate at every industry event. My own work in a variety of African countries at least partially informs an understanding of the management challenges Mr. Ngwenya and his colleagues are facing, but I have nothing to remotely inform an understanding of his personal challenges. Still, I'm more than willing to bet on the resilience of a man who has already endured an unjustified and extensive period of incarceration under apartheid. I certainly wish him well and thank you for sharing his story with your readers.

Very Best,
Mike Webber

Hi Geoffrey

     Thanks for the (as usual) excellent coverage of CNS this week. As I have said before, the next best thing to being there is to read the coverage provided by FT. I was however very surprised to see you claim: "you cannot remember the last time you saw a black man at a cargo event" Shame on you Geoffrey! Don't tell me you have never met Sam Okpro from Etihad or Howard Jones from Network Cargo Services, to name just two of many more black cargo managers. Both are experienced industry veterans and senior managers- who regularly attend the numerous cargo industry events, including WCS and TIACA /ACF. If I remember correctly, Howard Jones was a speaker at ACF in Amsterdam a year or two ago.
     Never mind, I will put the little faux pas down to your advancing years :-)
     Keep up the good work.

Best regards
Peter Walter

Peter,

     Good to hear from you.
     Love Sam, he is a great guy too!
     In any case the vast majority of folks are all great—and life should be color blind.
     Peter Paul in jail with Nelson M. is a story all by itself.
     Thanks for the kind words.
     Hope that you are OK.
     Maybe Atlanta later this year?

Good wishes,
Geoffrey

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