French Connection In America

     As the SkyTeam alliance recently celebrated its ten-year anniversary, its erstwhile cargo US Joint Venture went the other way. Some unanticipated factors contributed to its demise, such as the Delta/Northwest merger, with DL wanting more direct representation and control over its cargo business given the new size. Korean retained its freighters and continues on its own. What required a lot of work and patience to put together unraveled rather quickly.
     But lessons were learned and much experience gained in blending together a number of disparate cultures and approaches to business, something that wasn’t lost on the true students of the art.
     Martinair being absorbed into AF/KL cargo also brought a whole host of new challenges and opportunities, in view of their strong Southern U.S. and South America operation. An extremely difficult 2009 didn’t make things any easier for anybody. The good news is that 2010 is, so far, an absolute turn around for the combined businesses, which began commercial integration in 2009. And size matters; the combined 2008-2009 revenue reported was 3.5 billion dollars.
     As a result, a whole new integrated organization has evolved and been put in place, with a new regional approach and a departure from the formerly centralized call center in Atlanta. Flight schedules have been streamlined to provide the best fit for the respective fleet of each airline: Airbus/Boeing, MD11-AF freighters and passenger aircraft lower deck, KL combi aircraft and Martinair freighters, reflecting the corresponding market strength of the trio. And it doesn’t hurt that close contacts to Delta, albeit outside the group, still work well and are being leveraged for mutual benefit.
     The new cargo organization and logo will be released shortly; however, some of the key aspects, such as Atlanta remaining the headquarters for the Americas and U.S., are a safe assumption. The sales regions are managed from New York JFK, Houston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Miami respectively. The previous experience with the Joint Venture has stood executives such as the VP Sales, Alain Pagés, (left) in good stead, where the French, U.S., Korean and Dutch ways of running a cargo business had been blended together into a single customer-facing team in the U.S.
     Clearly, there is much more potential going forward in terms of further enhancing and harmonizing resources, especially IT, which is always a thorny issue, and one that is traditionally defended jealously by each airline. Keeping capacity tight seems to finally be a lesson most airlines have come to learn the hard way; they have all been seeing the benefits this year, wherever they are.
     A quiet giant is finding its legs!
Ted Braun

     Yangtze River Express, the all-cargo subsidiary of Hainan Airlines, China’s fourth largest airlines, received its ninth Boeing 737-300 freighter at Shanghai Pudong International Airport late last month.
     The newly arrived freighter completed conversion at Taikoo (Shandong) Aircraft Engineering Company (STAECO), with the whole conversion project lasting over three months (it began on April 19).
     This ninth B737 freighter increases the all-cargo fleet of Yangtze River Express to twelve: nine B737-300s and three B747-400s.
     The ninth B737-300 will commence service at the carrier’s newly launched domestic routes Shenzhen-Chengdu, Quanzhou early this month.
     Established in January 2003 as the second cargo airline in the country after China Cargo Airlines, Yangtze River Express is 51 percent owned by Hainan Airlines with the remaining percentage shared by four Taiwan companies, of which Taiwan’s China Airlines takes a 25 percent stake.
     By the end of 2009, Yangtze River Express operated over 200 flights every week on its 45 domestic and international all-cargo routes.
     The carrier plans an all-cargo fleet of 15 aircraft by 2010, building a Shanghai-centered network that will cover the world.
     According to its schedule, another B747-400 freighter will join in the month of September.
David

     It all started last summer with D-ACGA, followed shortly after by D-ACGB and now there is D-ACGC—the third Jumbo B747-400BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter) air freight carrier joining the ACG Air Cargo Germany fleet.
      Craft number three is dry leased from Dutch airline Martinair, a subsidiary of KLM (100%). It can load up to 110 tons each flight, upping ACG’s overall capacity from 220 to 330 tons. Before its first landing at Frankfurt-Hahn, the aircraft underwent a thorough technical check at a maintenance provider in Shanghai. Prior to operating the freighter, ACG hired additional cockpit crews, bringing the current number of Captains and First Officers up to 48.
     “Our decision to increase transport capacity is a very clear signal to shippers and agents that we are pursuing a long-term strategy of continuous growth,” stated CEO Michael Bock of ACG Air Cargo Germany. Shortly before delivering his remarks, the passenger-to-cargo converted aircraft was given the AOC and official registration by the German authority Luftfahrt-Bundesamt (LBA).
     Management made the additional announcement that a fourth Jumbo B747-400F will be acquired during the second half of this year. “This intended step very much underlines our aim to grow step by step,” commented Herr Bock.
     The Hahn-based cargo newcomer went airborne in July 2009 and carried 14,900 tons by year’s end. “In 2010 we expect as many as 63,000 tons due to high market demand and additionally deployed equipment we intend to use later this year with freighter number four coming into our fleet,” said Managing Director Thomas Homering.
     D-ACGC will operate mainly between Frankfurt-Hahn and the Chinese gateway of Shanghai, increasing the number of flights on this trunk route from four a week to daily service.
     In addition to the Hahn-Shanghai roundtrips, ACG will continue serving Hong Kong three times per week. This schedule will not change until further notice, and there are no other line haul destinations on the carrier’s current list.
Heiner Siegmund/Flossie

Contact! Talk To Geoffrey

RE: Week One Of USA 100% Screening

Geoff,
      As the interviews indicate it does not appear that there were any major issues with the implementation of the belly-cargo screening mandate. Let's hope that this remains the case. However a couple of things were alluded to in your interviews that will need to be clarified over the next several months.
      1. August represents low volumes. What happens when the peak season hits us?
      2. While the cargo flows appear to be fine, have the volumes on domestic passenger aircraft changed?
      3. For international cargo, if the "glitches" continue will that cargo shift to freighters or has some moved already?
      4. Will there be a shift among airports? This is not a big issue for carriers, but for airports and surrounding communities there would be implications.
      5. What are the additional charges to the shippers? Some carriers are indicating a fairly large jump in costs. Virtually any system can run smoothly if we throw enough dollars and equipment at it, but will the end- users choose to carry the costs or pursue other alternatives?
      So while things appear to be going well and hopefully will continue in this vein, let's keep a wary eye on what the next six months tell us, particularly when more oceanborne capacity comes back online.

Regards
Dan
Daniel B. Muscatello
Managing Director, Cargo & Logistics
Landrum & Brown
6003 English Court
Floyds Knobs, IN 47119

Haiti Six Months Later

 Right now, we imagine that people on this planet in some capacity, driven by the media must be tracking whatever terribleness follows that mammoth BP oil spill. There is one thing that all people share, and that is the ocean; it separates us while also joining us, it surrounds us all, it is a constant that marches relatively unchanged through time, even as landscapes fluctuate. Despite all the assurances that BP oil spill has affected the lives of many people, and it will impact generations to come. We all have our problems to deal with, and the march of time filled with events that alter and illuminate our lives, continues. It’s at this moment during August Dog Days that we here at Air Cargo News FlyingTypers take a moment to look back and wonder about another story that was headlines galore as we think about Haiti.
     It has been six months plus since a devastating earthquake struck the island nation and electrified the world’s attention, and we don’t wish for their tragedy to drown under the weight of this oil spill.
     Sorry to report, but although much has been done to help Haiti, when a country is as poor as this place, getting back to the hard scrabble existence that once passed for normal life here seems still out of reach.
     The Presidential Palace, a symbol of the country, is still a heap of rubble, and vast areas of the country look pretty much as they did just after the disaster.
     We were thinking about Haiti as President Rene Preval handed out awards (there seems to be an award for everything) and certificates to people like CNN TV personality, Anderson Cooper, and actor Sean Penn and 23 others recently in Port au Prince.
     Meanwhile, just near the awards platform, a tent city remains on the Champ de Mars, a once manicured lawn area of the government complex.
     There are still 1.6 million homeless in Haiti and right after the awards ceremony, a midday thunderstorm increased that number as many of the aforementioned rickety tents fell down or were blown away.
     So we are left to wonder (in advance of elections here come November) what is being done about Haiti?
     We can report that before, when all this hell descended upon Haiti, there was one organization working hard and it is still on the ground working to extend help and improve lives. It has even managed to break ground for a new 300-bed hospital.
     In July 2010, Partners In Health (PIH) and its Haitian sister organization, Zanmi Lasante (ZL), broke ground in Mirebalais, Haiti, for a world-class teaching hospital.
     Mirebalais will be a national referral facility, the flagship of PIH efforts to help rebuild Haiti’s health sector.
     PIH says that by the first anniversary of the earthquake—January 12, 2011—the seven buildings of the main hospital campus, comprising 180,000 square feet, will be standing, with work on the interiors begun.
Plans call for the hospital to be accepting patients by the end of 2011.
     The new hospital will have 320 beds—equivalent in capacity to all 12 of the sites in which PIH currently works in Haiti, combined—and will offer clinical facilities not available at any public site in the country, including an intensive care unit and an operating theatre complex with six operating rooms equipped for thoracic surgery.
     Dr. Alex Larsen, Haitian Minister of Health told ACNFT:
     “What Haiti needs now are true partners to help us build back better by strengthening our country's public infrastructure.
     “The new teaching hospital at Mirebalais will be a model for our national health system, offering high-quality medical services, a place for our clinicians to study and train, and hope and dignity to all who will seek—and offer—care there. “We look forward to building upon our long-standing partnership with Partners In Health/Zanmi Lasante with this desperately-needed facility."
     Mirebalais Hospital will include not just more beds and operating rooms, but state-of-the-art infection control, wall-mounted oxygen and medical gases, improved diagnostics (digital x-ray and ultrasound), and increased space around the beds to accommodate teaching rounds for medical and nursing students.
     One of the great human beings that you will ever meet, Dr. Paul Farmer, co-Founder of PIH, Chair of the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said,
     “For some of us, this hospital is the culmination of a dream dating back a quarter-century, and underlines our commitment to the country and people of Haiti, which is stronger than ever after the earthquake.
     “It is also a manifestation of our integrated model of research, teaching and service, and will serve as a site for all three. Mirebalais is being developed by a broad coalition which includes hundreds of individuals, several foundations, private corporations, Harvard teaching hospitals including Brigham and Women’s, Harvard Medical School, and of course our Haitian colleagues at ZL and the Ministry of Health. We are fortunate to be building upon the lessons learned in ZL's long experience of building infrastructure in Haiti, and to have the support of many old and new partners in this essential effort.”
     Partners In Health PIH was founded in 1987, two years after the Clinique Bon Sauveur was set up in Cange, Haiti, to deliver health care to the residents of the mountainous Central Plateau.
     PIH co-founders had been working in the area for years.
     The Clinic was just the first of an arc of successful projects designed to address the health care needs of the residents of the poorest area in Haiti.
     In the 23 years since then, PIH has expanded its operations to eight other sites in Haiti and five additional countries and has launched a number of other initiatives.
     To learn more or to donate help and services: Partners In Health, 888 Commonwealth Avenue, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA 02215. Phone: +1 617-998-8922. Fax: +1 617-432-5300. Email: info@pih.org.
Geoffrey/Flossie

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