NOLA Straightens Up
And Flies Right

  After taking some time to decompress and think about AirCargo 2022, I wanted to offer a perspective on what I thought was a very good conference, as well as what I consider to be a couple of very important takeaways. Before that however, my compliments to Brandon Fried and his team of planners for the event. I was able to get a little bit of a peek behind the curtain over the past year, and observed first hand, the time and effort that pulling together the conference under the best of circumstances require. In the midst of Covid with all its personal and operational complications, and with conferences cancelling all over, the New Orleans get together was a tremendous success and testament to the planning staff.
  Some observations:

  1.  The Conference panels expanded from traditional operating issues to discussions that sought to broaden perspectives on issues of critical importance such as human trafficking, sustainability, mergers and acquisitions, to name a few.A focused look at the future of the industry is essential to its continuing success,
  2.  There is an increasing understanding that the challenges that face air cargo cannot be solved by a single industry segment and that there are clear overlapping operational impediments and opportunities that can and should be addressed together.
  3.  The most immediate step that stakeholders can take to improve operations is basic, relatively inexpensive, and easy to implement. Communicate! Stakeholders need to realize the importance of day-to-day communications. Airport cargo committees that meet regularly, can substantially benefit all elements of cargo operations and planning. Eventually there will be sophisticated electronic communications networks that weave things tightly together, but the first thing to do is talk.
  4.  Lastly, as we look at the $25 billion allocated to airports under the Infrastructure Bill, there is enormous (and justified) concern that only a very small percentage of those funds will be allocated to air cargo, which, even prior to the pandemic, was confronted by numerous challenges to modernize and add airside and landside infrastructure and facilities, to the fastest growing aviation segment.
For air cargo, the future looks bright as long as stakeholders are pragmatic partners working for the common cause. A conference like AirCargo 2022 was an important step in moving the dialogue in the right direction.
Dan Muscatello