FlyingTypers reported from IATA’s World Cargo Symposium (WCS) last March in Kuala Lumpur that there was a positive note. Since his appointment, IATA Director General Tony Tyler (right) has taken a different approach, including speaking directly with the forwarders who represent their organization—FIATA, the Air Freight Institute (AFI), and the IATA/FIATA Consultative Council (IFCC) (the only formal body for airline/forwarder industry level dialogue).
     By way of background, the IFCC has been around for a long time, with some of its forwarder members having served for over twenty years.
     Suffice it to say, although they’ve always dished up effervescent discussions, in the course of the last decade the relationship has deteriorated dramatically, taking on overt hostile tones and action that peaked at last year’s WCS in Istanbul.
     It may have all been a sign of the times; the cargo business has evolved and forwarders have become customers of the airlines rather than acting in their original role as agents. While in the real world things played out, the institutional wrangling worsened because IATA and FIATA were increasingly at odds over fundamental changes needed in the industry framework to reflect the new state of affairs.
     It was therefore encouraging to hear Tony Tyler talk about the IFCC (IATA/FIATA Consultative Council) and how important it was for everybody to work together and get on the same page.
     Looking back at how things unraveled, matters reached the absolute low point in 2010, culminating in a lawsuit with IATA suing FIATA in a Canadian court following the termination of the joint IATA/FIATA training programs.
     Surprisingly, FlyingTypers was mentioned in the CAC (Cargo Agency Conference) agenda under policy items. Agenda item “P/4, FIATA – AFI [FIATA Air Freight Institute] Position on IATA Agency Program/IATA Relationship” went on at length about the fundamentals of the IATA/FIATA disagreement.
     “On September 2, 2011, an article was published by FlyingTypers ‘IATA Versus FIATA In Lawsuit’ that asked some very pertinent questions of the carriers who IATA purports to represent:
     “FIATA does not want or need intervention of Cargo Committee on the litigation. We have good lawyers and are confident of our position, but it reinforces the points made by FlyingTypers about the relationship with IATA and who speaks for the Cargo Carriers
          •   Who authorized the lawsuit within IATA?
          •   Was the Cargo Committee made aware or consulted?
          •   Do you know what precipitated the lawsuit?
          •   Has IATA kept you informed about how and why they are in Court?”
      FIATA was required to respond to the allegations made in the IATA motion and some discovery was made. Since then, the two sides have actually agreed to suspend hostilities while efforts are underway to resolve the matter amicably and settle in some shape or form!
      Fast forward, and in a first sign of the times, the Conference minutes show that item P/4 has been withdrawn. The minutes for Agenda Item P/5: “FIATA-AFI Agenda Submissions to the CAC/40” reflected a number of specific concerns, including:
          •   Training recognition
          •   Agency accreditation, financial criteria and guarantees
          •   CASS management, terms, conditions and procedures
          •   Local Advisory and Consultative group processes
          •   Apparent double standards between airlines and forwarders
     The vehicle for implementing these much-needed changes was the establishment of a special working group to come up with proposals for a new program, as recommended by the IFCC. The working group consists of three IATA and three FIATA representatives. A document was circulated entitled “Cargo Agency Modernization Programme” (CAMP) stating as key objectives:
          •   An advisory group would be set up to look at Modernization
          •   The advisory Group would meet before end of April 2012 [April 27 was the selected date for an initial meeting]
          •   The IATA FIATA Consultative Council (IFCC) requested that the CAC to be advised accordingly
          •   Conference was requested to support the establishment of the group.
     The Conference unanimously endorsed the initiative, recognizing the importance of the relationship with the forwarder and FIATA/AFI. Oh, if one could hear the music….
     The promise of better cooperation under the right conditions had been signaled, including the fact that changes will take time and effort, but also that FIATA–AFI feels that it is reasonable to expect these changes to become effective by March 2013.
      And it didn’t stop there—one of the previous hot button issues, the FIATA Dangerous Goods Training Course, was also approved by Conference as the “ICAO-FIATA Dangerous Goods Training Course” and subsequent changes to be made to various Resolutions [801,803, 805 Attachment ‘B’, 805 Attachment ‘A’, 807, 809, 813 Attachment ‘B’ and 815 Attachment ‘B’].
     A number of items were referred for inclusion in the new “Cargo Agency Modernization Programme.”
     The hope that a rational resolution will be worked out as promoted by IATA Director General and former Cathay Pacific cargo executive Tony Tyler at WCS in Kuala Lumpur seems to be bearing some fruit. Surely Des Vertannes, (left)IATA Global Head of Cargo, can be pleased that at long last things may be moving in the right direction.
Ted

     It is not just the race for the White House that is making news—next week Emirates launches its first flights from Washington, D.C., with an event that competes very nicely with the best Presidential galas, which are scheduled directly after the upcoming Fall 2102 elections.
     EK starting service on September 12 will be marked with what is sure to be a grand soiree in Washington, D.C..
     For air cargo that means a big customer party as well, with EK pulling out all the stops as per usual.
     An airline launch party “the way it ought to be” is nothing new, although in the grand scheme of things, Emirates has undoubtedly elevated the form to a point untouched by other carriers.
     Who can forget the EK USA launch a few years back at Cipriani on West 42nd Street in Manhattan? Under the shadow of Grand Central Station, CEO Maurice Flanagan (pictured with Nigel Page) hosted six hundred guests, as singer Tom Jones belted out tunes over tables with bowls of caviar big enough to swim in.
     All of this is probably (as Yogi Berra would say) like déjà vu all over again to Emirates top USA cargo executive, Ed Chism.
     You see, once upon a time Mr. Ed was a top cargo executive at Pan American Clipper Cargo.
     If there is one thing that last year’s short-lived Pan Am TV series taught us, it is that PAA wrote the book on deluxe first class travel and had the best high-flying airline parties.
     We wrote a lot about Ed earlier this year.
     As Washington, D.C. goes live in the Emirates global network, a story from the recent past is affectionately presented here once again.
     Good luck to EK Cargo (and the passenger side as well), as next week even more history is made in the Dubai carrier’s climb to the top of the international airline business.
Geoffrey

     Every once in a lifetime (or in my racket, if you are really lucky, a couple of times), you get to talk to somebody who truly lights up the room.
     It is Ed Chism’s presentation, experience, wisdom, positive point of view, and cutting right to the chase that sets this air cargo executive apart.
     Ed has been in the cargo business since Lyndon Johnson was U.S. President and apparently has loved every minute of it, which made my recent talk with him in New York such a great experience.
     Now that I think about it, later this month another talk I had with KLM’s Jacques Ancher will run in these pages, and not for the first time.
     Air cargo has some really interesting individuals, both men and women, for which it should be thankful.
     It is our intention to try and talk to every single one of them.
     Today in air cargo, nobody is flying higher than Emirates SkyCargo.
     While we write quite a bit about Emirates, its people, and the places and developments of the airline, it’s safe to say that the EK SkyCargo story and product rarely (if ever) disappoint.
     We spent a very good afternoon recently with SkyCargo’s point man in America, Ed Chism.
     Ed is Cargo Manager North America and is also old-school air cargo, meaning he has been humping and moving freight around the world since he was 19 years old. Now some 43-plus years later, he has managed to keep abreast of industry developments and finds himself where he always was, out front and leading the way whilst delivering valuable air cargo revenue to a great international airline from his base in New York City.
Sometimes the sweet story can be as exciting and memorable as any other.
     Ed Chism drives up in a sleek, low-slung BMW, an Emirates car that looks like something out of the movie The Transporter; a motor that appears to be in motion even while parked and sitting perfectly still.
     We meet in a small Italian seafood restaurant over on Cross Bay Boulevard near JFK International in Howard Beach, just down the road from Russo’s where all the airport cargo events are held.
     The place is called Vincent’s and not only is this venue a genuine joint and one of the best places anywhere, the restaurant is also near the social club once populated by the likes of John Gotti and Henry Hill, the infamous mob stooge and subject of director Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas.
     Goodfellas, among other things, tells of the Lufthansa Cargo heist at JFK during a time when air cargo at the big airport was considered a personal shopping mall for neighborhood gangsters.
     But Ed and I were younger at the time, and while I was chasing copy and pushing deadlines for our original air cargo newspaper Air Cargo News, Ed Chism was well on his way to building a career after beginning as a mere lad at legendary Pan American Airways Clipper Cargo.
     Today with my tape recorder in hand (which is turned off when we really talk) we lose no time getting down to cases.
     “Pan Am was there at the beginning of so many things important to aviation and air cargo.
     “But Emirates picked up the flag of forward thinking and innovation on the first day in business and has never backed down a bit since 1985.
     “My view is that our DVSP Ram Menen is both a global leader in the business and also a visionary in air cargo.”
     Those words from Ed, who worked with many of the legendary leaders of air cargo, bear some further consideration.
     Ed worked with Bill Boesch, Thor Johnson and a host of others at Pan Am and around the world. He rose from an entry clerk at PAA to waking up one day and having the rather sad and thankless task of closing down Pam Am Clipper Cargo altogether at Building 67, JFK, when the great airline was finally grounded forever in December 1991.
     “I was always fascinated with airplanes and the airlines.
     “A friend of mine worked for American Airlines so I asked him if there were any jobs at AA and he said no, but that he heard that Pan Am was hiring.
     “So at 19 I went to JFK PAA Hangar 14, put in an application and they asked me if I could type and I replied:
     “‘Sort of.’
     “They told me there were some openings in cargo and although I wasn’t much interested in the field, I indicated interest, figuring that was a good way to get my foot in the door.
     “Air cargo is where I started and stayed for the past 43 years.
     “I worked for Pan Am for 25 years.
     “I had actually started in Building 67 the week it opened, driving a forklift in Import on the midnight shift with Tuesdays and Wednesdays off.
     “We were not automated much at the time except for the Flow Access System, which was basically the first FedEx system several decades before that company went into business.
     “Building 67 was designed for B707s so most cargo were small packages.
     “The system was not perfected, and when the B747s came on, we ripped it out so that we could build up containers and pallets and other unitized freight.
     “I did all the jobs and finally worked in a satellite unit in the passenger terminal that coordinated the freight on and off the flights as my first management experience.
     “Later as a supervisor and a duty manager in both import & export, I moved up to director of ramp operations at a time when JFK International was Pan Am hub for six B747 freighters.
     “At that point I was in charge of postal activities, cargo ramp, and also coordinating freight, both passenger and all cargo.
     “When in the mid 1980s Clipper Cargo headquarters moved from Manhattan to Building 67, my job under Thor Johnson was worldwide director of sales and services, where I served until the airline shut down.
     “Looking back, I learned everything at Pan Am.
     “From documentation to U.S. Customs to all the regulatory authority requirements to security, you did it all—you had to do it all and that was it.
     “I guess my entrepreneurial spirit was greatly helped along by that experience because just after the airline went out of business, I declined to join Pan Am II, preferring to open my GSA company at JFK International off airport in Springfield Gardens.
     “We had several companies that we conducted various tasks for, including consulting, but Emirates was among our first accounts, and eventually Emirates grew into our biggest.
     “Our association began with a presentation for Ram Menen, which he accepted.
     “In 1993, Emirates began booking air cargo in USA; as an offline carrier we had zero revenue as we began moving freight via interline partners from New York to Emirates’ London flights.
     “As my GSA company expanded, we set up two Emirates freighter flights weekly from JFK to Dubai.
     “Initially the freighter flights grew nicely in the scheme of things, as those flights were always full and continued up until Emirates began flying into New York from Dubai non-stop.
     “Today with direct service to Dubai from a growing list of gateways, we continue to build; Emirates SkyCargo is a 100 million dollar business in USA and growing.”
     It turns out that Ed Chism, counting his nearly 12 years as SkyCargo GSA and the past eight as a full time employee of the Emirates, has been associated with the carrier for nearly 20 years, matching his Pan Am experience as not only the person in the right place at the right time but also as an air cargo executive in many ways responsible for Emirates’ great success in the USA market.
     But there is not an ounce of doubt or a moment of hesitation as Ed declares:
     “Emirates is truly a great airline.
     “If you want to draw comparisons between Emirates and Pan Am there is no comparison from an air cargo viewpoint.
     “Emirates SkyCargo is far superior to anything Pan Am Clipper Cargo did or hoped to become, even in its heyday.
     “The team is just great, headed up by Ram who is both a visionary and a great leader.
     “Ram Menen knows where he wants to bring the airline in air cargo and beyond; he has a very clear vision of where the entire industry needs to be moving ahead in the 21st century.
     “He is truly unique in the world right now when it comes to air cargo.
     “We all are lucky that he is on the global scene the way he is, pushing for air cargo change and advancement in every aspect of the business, from e-freight to warehousing to security, you name it.
     “Of course, underpinning his effort and legacy is his work in building SkyCargo, which will stand the test of time.
     “The big challenge ahead is about the same as before, and that is getting forwarders and governments to endorse and practice utilizing paperless air cargo or e-freight.
     “Here, America is a good example of the problem of putting e-freight into practice.
     “In some cities you can do paperless business with exports, but not imports.
     “In other cities it can be the other way around, while in yet other USA destinations it can be all shipments or worse—not allowing e-freight as part of the supply chain process at all.
     “Everybody knows that for real change, there has to be a collaborative effort across the board, but no one seems to know how and when that will happen.”
     You listen to Ed Chism talk and realize that rarely (or maybe even never) has this highly intelligent and wizened air cargo professional come off the line of moving air cargo, to tell it like it is and express these feelings.
     Ed is all about business.
     Ed Chism loves to move air cargo, and although we learned that he was off on a family holiday after our meeting, we could feel that even then he was looking forward to getting back, to take charge as Emirates expands operations vigorously across the USA to new destinations, including Washington, D.C. coming this fall and most probably Atlanta and Chicago sometime shortly after that.
     Often during our afternoon together, Ed would say:
     “C’mon, let’s go outside and have a smoke.”
     Without a word we would stand outside the small restaurant and Ed would continue the conversation, cigarette in hand.
     It made me think of all the years everybody just smoked in business meetings with several cups of coffee, and how unusual it was that anybody was still smoking in 2012.
     But at one break, our waitress followed us outside and lit up a cigarette with us.
     So there we were, two smokers and one non, and I wondered aloud why not just put a table outside?
     “The USPS is moving to cooperate with UPU and ICAO to try and standardize some electronic rules and procedures,” Ed said, as aircraft overhead moved in from the Atlantic on a long aerial pathway that would take them to final just above Ed’s old Building 67, a route the pilots call “The Canarsie Run” after the Brooklyn neighborhood just below the approach.
     “Let’s face it,” Ed said, “change, whatever the need, comes very slowly to air cargo. Aside from some information technology driven by the Internet and newer handling systems that have come on line during the past twenty years, the air cargo business has not changed all that much over time.
     “You still make out airwaybills, do consolidations, and then book the cargo on a flight.
     “Pallets are still built and airplanes are still loaded as they always were in air cargo.”
     Today, Emirates SkyCargo serves six USA destinations and (falling under one of Ed Chism’s responsibilities) has a GSA working cargo in Mexico for the carrier.
     In addition to double dailies to Dubai from JFK, EK has a block space agreement via Liege to Dubai with TNT that moves an additional 250 tons a week, trucked into the airport from Chicago and elsewhere.
     “The new flights have been well utilized and we are looking forward to Washington (Dulles) coming in September with daily flights (B777s) into Dubai—that will help us accommodate Washington, Baltimore, Charlotte, Atlanta and more.
     “My thought is that eventually we might go to increased freighter destinations in USA as the market further develops.
     “But we don’t want to be bigger or broader-based just for the sake of size—our mission is superior service and unusual customer relationships driven by the brilliance of our people and the Emirates Mega Hub in Dubai.”
     We said goodbye to Ed Chism with some promises to get together again sometime.
     Now a few weeks later, through that conversation with Ed I can recall a time when New York was the center of the universe for some truly great air cargo executives who served the famous international flag airlines and freight forwarders, during an era when the top USA gateway was here—the jewel in the crown of any international air cargo business.
     These few dozen people in various positions, from the top to the bottom, seated in offices on and around JFK International Airport, changed history over decades, and (among other achievements) gave birth to industry groups like CNS and TIACA to create much of what we know today as organized air cargo.
     There is still some of that breed out there among us, like Ed Chism and others, who still report daily to JFK, and that is a great comfort to me.
     In Ed’s case, he has come all the way back to once again be a major air cargo force at one of the greatest airlines in the world.
     In air cargo, Ed Chism has already lived twice.
Geoffrey/Flossie

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