Changes Flowering

     Miami International Airport handles 88 percent of the fresh-cut flowers that enter the USA, but to hear local transportation people talk, things are getting tougher for airlines, importers and truckers who make their living moving flowers through the gateway.
     The future that once seemed great is anything but a bed of roses, according to some.
     Right now the $7.2 billion annual fresh-cut flower business in USA is blooming, (more than 2 billion was spent one week ago on Mother’s Day), but discounters and an over abundance of product worldwide, plus elevated costs (fuel etc.) are exerting some downward pressure and threaten future industry profits.
     While every cost associated with fresh flowers keeps going up, sales seem to have flattened out in terms of building business, leaving the passing of costs along to the consumer nothing more than a pipe dream.
     Add to airport and industry woes is the move (or rush really) to sell and distribute fresh flowers outside the accepted traditional lanes.
     Now many big flower people are bracing for business in a whole new way.
     Many think that everything between the farmer and retailer is up for grabs sending a clear message to MIA that relies upon its flower business to be in the cargo business, and the airlines as well.
     Just as has happened in so many other parts of air cargo the middlemen in flowers are being pressured to prove their worth.
     ''Looking 10 years down the line, the grower and consumer are going to stay, and everything in the middle is subject to change,'' Gustavo Moreno, a flower wholesaler told The Miami Herald.
     ''Ten years ago, you didn't have a national supermarket chain,'' involved in the flower business, Moreno said, referring to availability of fresh cut flowers today in places like Wal Mart and elsewhere.
     "Today instead of 150 buyers that could buy significant volumes, you have 15 buyers that control the market.
     “They can put tremendous pressure on prices," he told The Herald.
     Change for the once predictable flower trade in America will be further impacted as new sources for the product move into the market.
     Of course Netherlands is always a factor as are Colombia and Ecuador, but on the horizon are growers in Africa from places such as Kenya and Ethiopia eager to develop their flower export industries.
     Meantime with many buildings on and off-airport that are little more than giant reefers under a roof, no one doubts that MIA will continue its perishables pre-eminence for some time to come.
     But change is clearly underway.
   In America where RFD used to mean “rural free delivery” meaning the mails, today RFD stands for Chicago/Rockford International Airport.
   Cargo tonnage like you can’t imagine, where you least expect it apparently is an every day deal at RFD.
   According to the Business Section of last Friday's Rockford Register Star:
   “Business has shown strong growth in recent years in its air cargo activity with UPS’ second-largest hub being based there.
   “In 2002, 1.26 billion tons of cargo moved through the airport.
   “That increased to 1.35 billion tons in 2005, largely because of UPS.”
   The thing that first caught our eye was the writer describing Emery Air hiring workers at RFD.
   “Emery Air provides a variety of aviation-related services at the airport from aircraft maintenance and management to ground services for passenger airlines and UPS.
   “The company now employs around 140 people and has been growing as airport traffic increased.”
   Emery Air we learn has been a full service FBO and other things at RFD since the 1950’s servicing all kinds of flights including this restored T-2 WW 11 trainer that stopped by in the snow one winter (www.emeryair.net).
   The cargo numbers based on Rockford passenger movement of about 150,000 souls last year must be millions of pounds, not billions of tons.
   An airport moving 1.35 billion tons of UPS cargo with ground and aircraft maintenance provided by Emery, we imagine proves one thing.
   Always expect the unexpected.
   One more point.
   Chicago/Rockford located about 70 miles from Chicago is like calling Philadelphia Airport Newark/Philadelphia, although everyone knows EWR is really a New York airline destination.
   Stay tuned for further amplification.
(Geoffrey)

   

   Sixty years ago Pan Am spent $417,000 to purchase “The China Clipper” from The Martin Company of Middle River, Maryland launching long distance air travel across the Pacific from the west coast of the U.S. as modern long distance air travel was transformed.
   Today Emirates Airline has placed more than one third of all the orders amongst passenger airlines for the A380 long distance jumbo jet that will transform international travel for the new century.

   Quote from Times of London Sunday May 21:
   “Emirates Airline is doubling its fleet of Boeing and Airbus jets, setting it on a flight path to overtake British Airways as the world’s biggest long-haul carrier by 2012.”
   Maybe.
   But our view is nothing will diminish a world airline ranking faster than that airline itself.
   Recent carping by a BA executive about U.S. carriers (UAL in particular) getting a free pass to grow while being protected by bankruptcy laws was particularly clawing to anyone old enough to recall the thinly veiled British bailout of BA during the 1980’s.
   Meantime all global airlines are putting on long-range aircraft to fly point to point between lucrative 12 to 14 hour destinations as fast as possible.
   The model invented by KLM in 1927 and Pan Am, Lufthansa, Air France, Sabena, Varig and BOAC after that, has been joined by Singapore, and Continental in modern times as the way to fly now.
   One thing for certain, things ain’t what they used to be, and maybe never were.
(GDA)

Thai Airways that has affected a 77% turn around in its financial fortunes as tourism ramps up across Southeast Asia, is not wasting any time cost cutting wherever it can.
Latest icons of that airline to get the axe are four remaining MD11s in the fleet including two that had been painted in snazzy new colors.
All of this has caused some to speculate that the decision to dump the MD11’s was sudden. Sources say that two of the aircraft are bound for UPS.

   Got an airplane and a dream?
   Wilkes Barre Pennsylvania (USA) regional business owners are organized in an effort to have air cargo service brought back to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport.
   “Funeral directors, florists and others, say having to pick up or ship at airports in Philadelphia, Newark or Syracuse is costly and time-consuming,” the WB Times Ledger said.
   “It really is an inconvenience for us and our clients,” said Lackawanna County funeral director Timothy Kramer, spokesman for the Air Cargo Coalition.
   “It costs more money and that cost is passed on to the consumer.
   “We’re told that the airlines don’t bring in jets that are big enough to carry cargo,” Kramer said. “We’re trying to put together some numbers that show the impact on the area.
   “Everybody’s paying a higher toll for everything because of this.”
   Wilkes Barre/Scranton Airport it should be noted spent some three million USD a couple years ago to install a separate ramp for air cargo.
   Air Cargo Coalition, P.O. Box 4053, Scranton PA 18505. E-mail: tkundertaker55@yahoo.com