While it seemed for a while that things were going up in smoke, herring, mackerel and tons of codfish remain Icelandair Cargo’s most important product, carried aloft (nature permitting) aboard the carrier’s aircraft every single day.
     ‘Volcano’ was the ‘it word’ for Iceland this year (more about that later), but Icelandair Cargo has other fish to fry as 2011 continues.
     “Sea fish, together with vegetables, fruits and medical products, account for about 90 percent of our total air freight volume,” states Gunnar Mar Sigurfinnsson, Managing Director for Icelandair.
     The other ten percent is contributed by the extremely tough Iceland horses, which are mainly exported to European horse breeders, and all sorts of general cargo that lands in the five freighters and lower deck compartments of Icelandair, the sister passenger airline. Last year nearly 30,000 tons were transported on behalf of Icelandair Cargo, resulting in a turnover of USD$100 million in total. That’s why “we were able to contribute a very satisfying margin to the group,” says Sigurfinnsson without revealing detailed profit figures.      The air freight flyer is part of Icelandair Holding, an umbrella organization uniting eight different enterprises. Ranked first is the passenger airline Icelandair, next in revenues comes the cargo offspring, followed by travel agencies, a hotel chain, ground handling and technical services at the Icelandic airports and, last but not least, regional carrier Loftleidir Icelandic, which offers domestic flights together with airlift to and from neighboring Greenland.
     Gunnar, born in 1965, started from the ground up at Icelandair, with his first job as aircraft loader back in July 1986.
     “Apart from flying an aircraft, I’ve taken on just about every assignment possible ever since, at the airline,” he recalls. His career record is quite impressive, with General Manager Germany and Central Europe from 1996 to 2005 as one highlight and Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing at the carrier’s headquarters in Reykjavik as another one.
     When he took over as head at Icelandair Cargo in May 2008, the aviation world was still in order.      Iceland’s economy was thriving, the national currency króna (crown) was extremely strong and the locals were importing massive amounts of consumer goods.
     “In July 2007 alone, we had a backlog of one hundred cars bought by our nationals in the U.S. to be brought to our hub Keflavik,” he says, looking back at the good old days.
     It took his airline 52 long weeks to fly the enormous amount of purchased cars out of the States to their new Icelandic owners.

     In Fall 2008, however, Sigurfinnsson learned his first basic cargo lesson; the economy collapsed almost completely and transport volumes shrank by 60 percent. “In that highly hostile situation, my management team and I had to take immediate steps to assure Icelandair Cargo’s further survival,” he says, describing those crucial weeks and months. The consequence of the crash was that the intercontinental network was stripped and completely restructured, two of the five B757 freighters the carrier operated were leased to TNT and DHL on ACMI terms, thus guaranteeing a steady cash flow, and—most sobering of all—thirty percent of the freight airlines’ total workforce had to be laid off.
     “It was a heartbreaking decision, but we had no alternative due to the massive losses we incurred during those days,” Sigurfinnsson explains.
     The carrier had just gained some ground when the next tragedy occurred – the unpronounceable volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, erupted in April 2010.
     “In those days, either our home base Keflavik or Akureyri in northern Iceland was closed due to the drifting ash clouds.
     “We had to, more or less, decide very spontaneously to which airport we would direct our thermo trucks, which were loaded with fresh fish, in order to fly the perishables out of the country,” he says. After having decided this, the next question confronted was at which airports could the freighters operate from? While Eyjafjallajokull continued to eject ash into the atmosphere, there were only some places in Norway or Scotland still open for air traffic. During those days the manager and most of his airline’s employees didn’t see their homes, opting to sleep at the office instead.
     However, despite the traffic turmoil caused by the volcano, Icelandair Cargo presented 2010 as its most successful financial year ever in history. For fiscal 2011, Sigurfinnsson expects an even better result since volumes keep on rising. But instead of imports, it is now mainly exports that drive the carrier’s tonnage.      “There is growing market demand for fresh sea fish,” he says. The cold waters around his island offer plenty of this desired product.
Heiner Siegmund/Flossie

Bill Boesch
     When the American Airlines aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, I was in Dallas preparing to go to the airport to fly to an industry meeting on the west coast. I immediately called the AA's Operations Center and was told of the situation.
      My first thought was for my daughter, Robin, who worked on Wall Street. Her floor to ceiling windows faced the World Trade Center and she saw the second aircraft hit as I was talking to her. She evacuated the building and actually saw the buildings collapse on the street. She lived in Soho and talked to me on her cell phone as it was happening and she was walking home.
     My second call was to my friend Julius Maldutis who worked across the street from the World Trade Center. He immediately left his office and made his way home to Long Island.
     But the effect on these two people, what they saw in this catastrophe, is still with them today.
     My next calls were to military people I know who worked in the Pentagon.
     Fortunately all of them were OK, but shocked.
     I knew then that the world would change and security would be elevated to extraordinary levels, not only with the airlines, but in many aspects of our lives.
     For years I have been pushing that the air cargo industry take on the task of security with the same intensity that they had done for restrictive articles. I have lived through situations where the UK had one set of rules and Germany had another. That may be somewhat OK on the passenger side as passengers walk to and from the aircraft themselves. But with air cargo that of course is not the case and I believed the industry needed uniform global rules. Also, as Bob Crandall said at an air cargo meeting, "Most people understand more about the passenger side of the business than the cargo side as they have been passengers on aircraft. But none of them are boxes so their knowledge of air cargo is very limited."
      Therefore I felt it was important for the industry experts to immediately take the first steps, after 9/11, to develop an elevated system for increased air cargo security and thereby closely partner with the world governments in forming a worldwide standard similar to what they did with Restricted Articles.
     As the years passed the governments, airlines and airfreight forwarders have worked together with the world governments to form industry standards, which I fear will become even more restrictive if another attack occurs. I would urge the industry to ask their governments to work with the manufacturing industry to develop electronic devices that will safely, quickly and economically examine air cargo.
     The air cargo industry sells speed and anything that decreases that speed will affect it. And even if speed is decreased only by a small percentage, that will have a negative effect on the industry. Therefore I believe the development of these devices to maintain the speed of movement is vital to the air cargo industry.
     Presently, I am in Iraq and Afghanistan and see firsthand many types of cargo security, ranging from massive truck X-Ray machines to dogs smelling out various dangerous materials. All of them significantly delay the movement of cargo even though the U.S. government considers this a vital area.
      I cannot believe that if we can walk on the moon and land on asteroids and on Mars that we cannot develop a fast, safe and economical device to protect ourselves from the people who will do us harm through the movement of cargo.
     One final thought: As a boy, I asked my parents what they were doing when they heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th. I wonder if in the years to come my grandchildren will ask my children where they were on 9/11?

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