Vol. 7  No. 91                                         WE COVER THE WORLD                                                       Thursday August 21, 2008

Lufthansa Charters Imagination

     There are many ways to put the foot into the door of new air cargo markets, by commencing scheduled services, offering charter flights or by opting for a combination of both.
     It just takes a bit of imagination.
     To set the table here, not many players are able to mingle line haul and charter flights successfully because of a lack of specific skills.
     Not so Lufthansa Cargo and their subsidiary (100%) the Charter Agency.
     They both are consistently combining their particular and individual strengths by utilizing the different freighter aircraft that belong to the group's fleet or are leased from third party capacity providers like U.S. lessor World Airways.
     The latest example of this 'under one roof working together philosophy' is exemplified by one of the two weekly Cargo services from Frankfurt to Curitiba in Brazil.
     From there, the aircraft ferries to Quito in Ecuador, where it is loaded with flowers and other perishables before heading back eastbound to Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
     "While our parent company LH Cargo markets the stretch Frankfurt-Curitiba we are responsible for filling the Boeing B747-400F with freight from South America back to Europe," states Charter Agency's general manager Christian Fink.
     The results of automotive parts to Brazil and flowers from Ecuador to Amsterdam are high payloads both ways.
     "By combining line haul and charter services we increase the utilization of the craft," confirms Charter manager Fink.
     Higher revenues for the entire group are the measurable consequences of this collaborative strategy.
     The B747-400F that Lufthansa deploys on the South America-Europe round-trip is leased from Peachtree City, Georgia-based World Airways.
     It is the capacity provider's first Jumbo freighter in their fleet.
     Obviously cargo Curitiba whets the appetite for more.
     "It seems feasible to route the second weekly line haul flight from Curitiba to Buenos Aires and back to Frankfurt, as a charter flight," states Fink. He sees this service as an addition—no competition—to his parent company's MD-11F present scheduled flights to Argentine's capital.
     Further, he intends to utilize Shenzhen, China-based Jade Cargo's freighter fleet of B747-400ERF for charter purposes.
     "The five aircraft are all equipped with nose doors, which enable us to load oversized goods on board the aircraft like drilling equipment for the oil industry."
     Jade belongs to the Lufthansa Cargo group with the German airline holding 25 percent of the carrier's stakes.
     Since Jade is licensed in China the airline has got valuable intra-Asian and trans-Pacific traffic rights that LH Cargo Charter can also highly benefit from.
     Finally, Herr Fink envisages collaboration with DHL and LH Cargo subsidiary (50/50%) AeroLogic that intends to deploy up to twelve B777 freighters beginning April next year.
     "As soon as they get airborne we have a variety of large freighter aircraft that we can utilize for carrying out our own projects," the Charter manager says.
Heiner Siegmund

Qatar Airways Readies Houston

     This summer the world has gotten used to the Number 8, especially with China rolling out the Olympics 8/8/08.
     Qatar Airways understands the importance of “The Big 8,” in fact all year long the carrier has been adding flights as it moves its number of cities served into the eighties.
     Shortly flights to Houston, Texas USA from Doha launching in December, will again raise the airline's worldwide destinations further into the “8s”, as destinations served at that point will reach 84.
     "Houston will become our third destination in the U.S.," Ali M. Al Rais executive vice-president – commercial told Gulf News.
     Qatar Airways also plans to increase the size of its fleet to 110 aircraft by 2013.
     Al Rais noted that high fuel prices are impacting Qatar Airways' bottom line, just as they are for other airlines around the world.
     "The fuel we buy isn't subsidized by the government.
     “We are an independent company and we purchase our fuel at the prevailing market prices, so we are affected as well," Al Rais said.
     

Big Mo For Claims Show

From left to right at last year’s gathering are Michael Gill, Senior Legal Counsel IATA, Aleks Popovich, Director and Global Head of Cargo IATA, Stefan Kühn, Chief Operating Officer Via Mat Group. Also pictured is 2007 keynote speaker, the great Oliver Evans, Chief Cargo Officer Swiss International Airlines and Ajay Pande, Manager, Cargo Agency Policy IATA.

     With the 4th IATA Cargo Claims and Loss Prevention Conference being held September 17-19, 2008 in Bangkok now less than a month away momentum or “Big Mo,” toward the event is taking hold.
     IATA Cargo says registration is still open and continuing right up to show time.
     “We are booking this event at a brisk pace,” said Ajay Pande, IATA Manager-Cargo Agency Policy.
     “A large number of air cargo claims professionals and risk & insurance managers from various airlines, freight forwarders, shippers and insurance companies are scheduled to attend.
     Also expected are eminent aviation liability lawyers from well-known law firms around the world as well as representatives of surface transport providers, recovery agents, security services providers etc.
     “A notable feature of delegates registered so far is the sizeable number of forwarders from the Asia-Pacific region.”
     Mr. Suebsaeng Vorapravat, Managing Director – Cargo, (left) Thai Airways International will launch this year’s conference and deliver the keynote address.
     The Honorary Secretary of the Thai Airfreight Forwarders’ Association (TAFA) Mr. Voratat Tantimongkolsuk will also address the conference and present the freight forwarders’ perspective on air cargo claims.
     Two most popular conference featured items based on past comment again are slated for BKK.
     On the agenda of this conference are the "Judges Corner" where a panel of eminent lawyers gives expert opinion on the legal cases submitted by the delegates and the "Experts' Advice" where experienced claims managers offer their advice on complicated claims cases brought along by the delegates.
     “We have included a range of very important and interesting topics such as "Fraud involving air cargo claims", "Implications of the new IATA Conditions of Carriage (Resolution 600b II)", "Loss Prevention – Learning from existing claims to prevent future losses" and other topics will be addressed.”
     Of course a Gala Dinner will be held but in this part of the world that gathering with a Thai Cultural show hosted by Thai Airways International Cargo on the evening of September 17 will be something special.
     “Based on the feedback received from the past years’ delegates, the topics and the speakers of this year’s conference have been carefully chosen,” Mr. Pande said.
     Complete conference agenda giving details of the various topics to be addressed, with the names of the experts delivering them, is now available: http://www.iata.org/events/cargoclaims2008/index.htm.
      Next month just as last time, IATA pushes the frontiers of understanding and air cargo fellowship with another outstanding world-class conference.
Geoffrey Arend


Wearing White Keeps
SkyCargo Cool

     Somebody once said:
     ”If you don’t like the situation take a deep breath, wait a minute and look around.”
     So apparently something like that happened in Dubai.
     No secret it can get mighty hot across the Middle East this time of year and warm enough most of the rest of the time so keeping cool is never far from thought here.
     On any given day you see lots of people in these parts wearing white.
     Now some smart dressed air cargo at DXB and other SkyCargo stations are dressing in while as well.
     Actually the folks at Emirates SkyCargo have been involved and at the forefront of cool chain ideas and solutions for sometime now.
     But this latest EK effort with a leading U.S. research institute could be the groundbreaking new product for shipment of temperature sensitive cargo.
     Called “ White Cover,” the low-cost, lightweight, breathable and reusable protective wrap is designed to protect shipments from heat during transport.
     "This is the first time this unique type of protection that completely encloses the shipment has been used for the air freight of temperature sensitive goods," said Therese Puetz, Manager Cargo Business Development & Projects.
     “One of the 'White Cover's distinct properties is its breathability – it resists air and water penetration while enabling trapped moisture to escape – making White Cover ideal for 'living' food and flower products.
     “The low cost has made it popular with shippers of pharmaceuticals, especially room temperature pharmaceuticals.
     "It works on the principle of solar radiation and offers significant thermal protection," explained Ms. Puetz.
     "It also allows cooling of the shipment during transport and cold storage operations.
     “As well as being environmentally friendly, White Cover is 100 percent recyclable – its application is straightforward, taking two people a maximum of eight minutes for application on a pallet.
     “White Cover is available in two pallet sizes: PLA, which weighs 2kg, and PMC, which is 3kg or about a tenth of the weight of other insulated covers available in the market today.”
Geoffrey

  

     Air China Cargo launches flights to Israel by mid-2009 according to reports. Reportedly about 600 tons of air freight a month was now being moved between Israel and China mostly moved via Europe.
     El Al cancelled its cargo route to China due to soaring costs earlier this year.

 

     LAX of Air Cargo…In USA Los Angeles International Airport air cargo sunk 6.9% during June.
     LAX moved 158,339 tons in June ’08 as compared to 170,162 tons in ‘07.
     For the first half of the year, air cargo at LAX dropped at about the same rate.

 

 

     TNT s India-based domestic road express company Speedage from now on will be called TNT.
     TNT acquired Speedage in September 2006.
     Headquartered in Bangalore, TNT India has 3,500 employees, 614 depots, 29 hubs and 1,546 road line-haul vehicles and now only one name.
     But with all due respect, Speedage or Speed-Age by any measure is a much cooler brand name in our opinion.
     But letting the tail wag the dog probably never occurred to anyone.


     Mercator, the Emirates Group IT technology outfit has another (its third) contract in North America after securing another customer for Rapid, the Mercator airline interline revenue accounting solution.
     WestJet Canada that operates a fleet of 76 B737 aircraft is now a Mercator Rapid Bureau Interline Solution customer.
     Rapid outsources revenue accounting services including airway bills.
     Bottom line is that WestJet will also keep track now of its bottomline faster while cutting accounting costs.

 

FlyingTypers In
Your Own Write

 

Hello Geoffrey:

     Have just finished reading Ted Braun’s FlyingTypers editorial piece on air cargo statistics (8/18).
     Using tonnage data to rank airports is as precarious as suggested.
     At hubs and gateways, the same pound/kilo will often be counted as deplaned cargo on the inbound flight and again as enplaned cargo outbound.
     Also, while most airports report only cargo actually handled to sources such as Airports Council International (ACI), others include cargo on-board for aircraft possibly only being refueled. Still, tonnage numbers are much more valuable than mere placeholders "in annual reports" but rather are critical inputs to facilities planning both for carriers and in airport master plans. Ideally, throughput should be paired with some consideration of dwell-time but the effort and access required to extract the latter pushes the limits of marginal benefits. IATA (and others) somewhat introduce dwell-time into planning models using variable levels of operator/warehouse automation.
     Hopefully I haven't come off as petty or pedantic in suggesting that some of those statistics (however imperfect) are quite important to many of us in the planning end of this industry.

Greetings and best wishes,
Michael Webber
Webber Air Cargo, Inc.
Kansas City, Mo. USA

Hi Geoffrey,

     With respect to Flying Typers “Numbers Raise Questions” August 18, our Chief Economist, Brian Pearce notes that while it is true that AF-KLM cargo revenues are up (in fact they rose even faster in Q2 to 12% year-on-year) 10% of that was due to higher prices.
     Cargo volumes were up just 2%, which is much slower than last year and entirely consistent with what IATA is reporting about volumes.
     Cargo is price sensitive so this actually strengthens IATA's case that the market outlook is weak.
Just wanted to clarify these points for future reference.

Best regards,
Lorne Riley
IATA.