 John
Ryan knows about humble beginnings.
Once upon a time John and a couple of others launched
a single aircraft cargo program attempting to fill a sole daily
airplane flight that departed Newark International Airport and flew
to London.
The airline was Virgin Atlantic and by the time
his stewardship of that carrier’s U.S. air cargo program ended
a couple of years ago, VG Cargo had moved from a bad joke to a force
to be reckoned with.
Now John Ryan is building again, this time with
an airline that actually is bigger and in many ways better positioned
for future development than Virgin was, once upon a time.
BMI from its own humble beginnings nearly 70 years
ago, today operates 1,700 flights per week over a network of 36
airports in the UK, Europe, India, Saudi Arabia and transatlantic
to the U.S. and Caribbean.
Despite anything else you may have heard or read,
bmi is now the UK’s second largest airline at one of the world's
most connected airports holding 12% of all take off and landing
slots at LHR with a fleet of 42 jet aircraft which have an average
age of five years.
The airline that began life in 1938 as Air Schools
Ltd, specializing in RAF pilot training and later as Derby Aviation
carries along with a rich history, a living heritage at Donington
Hall the company headquarters located near Nottingham East Midlands
Airport.
But recent moves to spread bmi wings to international
destinations from LHR, play big into John Ryan’s strong suit
right now.
Flights to Mumbai, Jeddah and Riyadh from gateway
London sold to U.S. shippers via bmi’s thrice-weekly service
from Las Vegas and daily service to LHR from Chicago ORD, are not
only catching on but also breathing life into routes that can use
a professionally operated air cargo connection.
“The A330 is a great cargo friendly aircraft,
but our success is because we keep our hands on the shipments and
let everybody know what to expect,” John notes.
“Also because we occupy a position of pride
at LHR and we keep it simple, our connections and handling are simply
superb.
“My view is that bmi is big enough to compete
with anybody in the air cargo business while offering a viable alternative
to big, impersonal, and at times lengthy, expensive cargo movements.
“For example we are trucking from LAX into
Las Vegas in a couple of hours to connect to our London A330 flights,
then onto any of our destinations.
“Our Mumbai (daily) Jeddah (daily) and Riyadh
(daily) connections via LHR through an uncongested cargo handling
operation offers a real alternative to others both in service and
price.”
(516) 883-9382, john.ryan@flybmi.com
(Geoffrey) |
LATE
NEWS
Up against Great Wall Airlines, a JV cargo
carrier established by China Great Wall Industry Corporation, Singapore
Airlines Cargo Pte Ltd. and Dahlia Investments Pte Ltd. (a wholly
owned subsidiary of Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd.) will be plenty of
competition, as six times weekly freighter services from Shanghai
to Amsterdam launched yesterday June 1. Based at Shanghai’s
Pudong Airport, Great Wall Airlines operates a
fleet of 2 Boeing 747-400 freighters.
Next GW says it will climb into the freighter
business to India, South Korea and Singapore.
Stay tuned . . .
Easy Being Green . . .
The Executive Director of the Worldwide
Project Consortium Ltd (WWPC), Wolfgang Karau, has been awarded
a Golden Medal of Honor by the Federation of Finnish Entrepreneurs,
the largest business network in Finland representing 90,000 members,
in recognition of his outstanding work as a logistics services provider
over 20 years.
WWPC General Manager and Director, Kevin Stephens,
said Mr. Karau’s award was well deserved and acknowledged
a successful career delivering specialized cargo services for clients
around the world.
“Wolfgang’s prestigious award recognizes
the level of expertise he has achieved as one of the most successful
project forwarding experts in the industry,” Mr. Stephens
said.
ProCargo specializes in outsized cargo.
Among other things, the company was responsible
for the shipment of the Russian Space Shuttle Buran from Russia
to Australia.
The WWPC now has 90 specialist project offices
in 79 countries and has grown to be the world’s largest dedicated
project forwarding and logistics management company with annual
turnover of more than $US3.5 billion.
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Qatar Airways added QR code on flights
operated by German carrier Lufthansa between Germany and four U.S. points
- Houston, New York JFK, Newark and Washington.
Both airlines currently codeshare on flights between Doha and Frankfurt,
a route operated
by the two carriers.
In addition to its toehold in the U.S. market Qatar says it
will launch dedicated non-stop flights between Doha and the U.S. east coast
later this year with Airbus A340-600 aircraft.
The bigger picture worth noting is, added to double dailies
into New York from Dubai via Emirates and projected service into New York
City “later this year” from Etihad, the proposed Qatar services
and the others represent a significant shift in world cargo and passenger
air lane traffic going on almost everywhere made possible by long range
decent payload Airbus and Boeing aircraft that now (in this example) bypass
Europe and notably London altogether.
 Blue
Dart, India’s largest domestic air express, courier and package
distribution operator added two Boeing 757-200 freighters into its
air express fleet extending its route network to 60 cities.
The
company said an aviation hub would be launched at Ahmedabad.
Blue
Dart’s freighters handle 15 pallets with a payload of 28 tons
on its main deck, and additional freight in its lower holds.
Malcolm Monteiro, Managing Director, Blue Dart Express
Ltd. noted:
“We’ve introduced the
757’s at a time when the Indian economy is aiming at GDP growths
of 10%.
“India, however, relies heavily
on domestic consumption which projects a growing distribution requirement.
“Blue Dart is the country’s first
and to date only company with a dedicated surface and air infrastructure
for domestic express.
“The 757’s
help us service the five metros of Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai
and Bangalore and the sub metro cities of Hyderabad and Ahmedabad,
which account for 90% of India’s total air cargo distribution.
The Gujarat markets will be greatly benefited
with faster deliveries as a result of our new routes, and the Hyderabad
outbound gateway will be connected to the rest of India to service
our customers more efficiently.”
Blue
Dart operates five Boeing 737-200 and two Boeing 757-200 freighters,
with seven aviation hubs at all the major metros. |
 Pakistan
International Airlines (PIA) which operates to 66 destinations (42
international and 24 domestic) with a total fleet of 41 aircraft,
7 of which are regional aircraft, took delivery of the first of
seven ATR 42-500 aircraft, order valued at $100 million USD.
Pictured in Toulouse (left) is Syed Farooq H.
Shah, Deputy Managing Director of PIA and Filippo Bagnato, Chief
Executive Officer of ATR.
PIA gets two other aircraft in November and December
2006 and four more in May 2007.
The aircraft replace PIA F-27 (beloved beer cans)
aircraft fleet.
“This delivery represents an important step
in our commitment to the people of Pakistan.
”I’m very happy to deliver this airplane
and convinced that we will develop a long-lasting partnership with
this new ATR customer,” said Filippo Bagnato.
ATR has sold 806 aircraft (399 ATR 42s and 407ATR
72s) and delivered 694 aircraft (384 ATR 42-500 and 310 ATR 72-500.
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Is UPS Losing
U.S. Market Share?
The Colography Group in Atlanta (USA) released two
of its annual reports on the U.S. airfreight and expedited trucking
markets noting that both air cargo exports and domestic ground parcel
traffic set records in 2005.
Air export shipments
in 2005 approached 92.4 million, the first time shipments exceeded
the 90 million annual mark.
Export traffic
increased nearly 8% from 2004 levels.
“Last
year was a splendid one for U.S. air exports as the vestiges of a
weaker dollar, combined with resilient end-markets across the globe,
created strong demand,” Ted Scherck, President, The Colography
Group said
As for the records in ground parcel
activity, Scherck commented,
“U.S. commerce
has migrated to a short-haul, regional model where goods are delivered
and distributed less than 600 miles via lower-cost surface transport.
As we move well into 2006, we see nothing on the horizon to change
this trend.”
Two Colography Group publications
deal in depth with each subject
“U.S.
Domestic Surface Traffic And Yield Analysis By Competitor And Market
Segment”, and “U.S. Domestic And Export Air Traffic And
Yield Analysis By Competitor And Market Segment” include lots
of facts and numbers and many interesting side-by-side comparisons
of market activity such as this one:
“UPS
controlled 68% of the ground parcel shipment share at the end of 2005,
by far the largest share. However, UPS share dipped from the 68.8%
reported at year-end 2004.
“FedEx Ground
and DHL Express gained modest share, while USPS’ share declined
incrementally.”
More @ colography@colography.com
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“This is how I look when I am excited,”
said Ralph, the basset hound upon learning that a new animal station
is being created and built by Lufthansa Cargo at Frankfurt International
Airport.
Scheduled to open early 2008, the 7,150-square-metre
site near Gate 26 will house all the departments responsible for
animal transport, which up to now have been located at various sites
at Frankfurt Airport.
“The new facility at Cargo City North will
be one of the most modern airport animal stations in Europe and
will also make the transport and the stay at the station more comfortable
for the animals,” said Karl-Heinz Köpfle, member of the
Lufthansa Cargo Executive Board responsible for operations, although
the boss did stop short of declaring the new center would be like
business class travel for animals. Lufthansa Cargo said it annually
transports more than 10,000 pets and 1,300 horses. |
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