Laura Pullins, President Cargo Network Services Corp. (CNS) and Head of Cargo The Americas-International Air Transport Association (IATA), thanked the advisory board and said her focus will be on the future of CNS.
     Dimitrios Jimmy Nares, Section Chief Aviation Marketing, Miami Dade Aviation Dept, “Miami is at near capacity and we are currently constructing vertical just like Hong Kong.”
     Brandon Fried, The Constant Forwarder, Executive Director, The Airforwarders Association, declared, “The AFA has found a congressman in NJ to address a bill to help reduce air cargo congestion through U.S. airports.”
     It has been a time coming. Cathay Cargo has been a long-time advocate of CNS.      Here is what Tom Owen, Director, Cathay Cargo, based in Hong Kong, the airline that once upon a time evoked memories of Terry & The Pirates, shared with the CNS audience
     “We kept momentum during the dark days of Covid, keeping pilots flying with turn arounds and flying with double crews. The important thing was to keep the network going.
     “The freighter network was canceled overnight. For five long months we were quiet on long haul markets but we came together. We launched preighters. Kept our planes moving and our pilots active.
     “Speed and creativity were critical. We focused on vaccines and hubbed pharmaceuticals through HKG, expanding temperature and sensitive solutions.
     “We became flexible and aligned cargo operations more with passenger.
     “Focused on acceleration of digitization across commercial accounts and boosted analytics and advanced the digital culture.
     “Transformed our culture to focus on people and encourage their creativity.
     “The Covid crisis presented danger but also an opportunity to bring change and progress.”

     Paulos Ashebir Lakew is Head of Industry Analysis International Air Transport Association (IATA).
     Right at the gate we get the numbers.
We are all in the room together.
     “Global GDP growth slows to 2.8% in 2023
     “Headline inflation likely peaked in 2022. Pressures on operating costs also peaked in 2022.
     “Labor markets remain tight with unemployment rate at historic lows."
     Well hooray for three of those!
     “Headwinds continue to challenge air cargo demand. Industrywide CTKS are currently 5.3% below 2019 levels.
     “Drivers of cargo demand remain elevated, while CTKS are down from a strong year iun 2021.
     “Growth in CTKS was uneven across regions in 2022. North America and Africa carriers outperformed 2019 CTKS.
     “Cargo demand conserves momentum in 2023. Key market see volumes above or close to pre-crisis level.
     “Global capacity returned to pre-Covid levels in April driven by the restoration of belly-hold capacity.
     “Yields are declining but still higher than pre-Covid levels.
     “Air cargo slowdown to moderate in 2023. Yields to decline but remain above 2019 levels.
     “Capacity to grow further with passenger operations. Industry to recover global passenger traffic in 2024.”
     It’s good to be back and get some numbers.
     Then Paulos gave his hitlist of the possible industry key risks: Global Recession, Jet Fuel Price, Trade Wars, Travel Restrictions, Global Inflation Supply-Demand Imbalances, China Recovery, Foreign Exchange, Pandemics, Oil Price Volatility, Blocked Funds, Climate, War in Europe and UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS. Pretty much covers anything and everything!
     The most famous of the phrasers to extoll the virtues of hedging your bet by always including the unknown unknowns was Donald Rumsfeld, who once served as the youngest ever U.S. Secretary of Defense (1975-77 under Gerald Ford) and then just for good measure he came back (2001-2006) and served in President George W. Bush's Cabinet as the oldest.
     “There are known knowns,” Rummie said. “These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”

Some good advice and smart thinking:

Laura Pullins: Network positions have long lead times and customer relationships take a long time and can be destroyed in short times.
Andres Bianchi: We strive to build for the long term that is relevant. Digitization is one of our programs.
LP:   Digital means on an old base? What if that gets thrown away and we’ve invested in a single one?
AB:   One record is something we can build on to make digital progress.
LP:   What about struggles and how do you adjust?
AB:   Investing in design takes a lot of quality time. But getting the right SME into the design can improve time to market.
     If you realize and plan that things will not always work perfectly. That experience process has a lot of touch points:
      1.  Learn to fail.
      2.  Learn from mistakes.
      3.  Change management and must communicate why the need for change.
LP:   Sustainability - what are you working on?
AB:   For sustainability we have to address the issues. Fuel is one of these and the co2 footprint. Plastics are another one of these. We have enabled our teams to come up with ideas. We are working on that effort and funding new ideas, even if 6 out of 10 fail.
LP:   What about people development?
AB:   We are very admired in our home market. Since going private some years ago, we have really brought in a lot of talent and increased female leadership. The new LATAM leaders are cargo people who used to build pallets or drove forklifts. We have brought passenger people to cargo and cargo to passenger to not only spread the talent, but for everyone to have a clearer understanding of our total brand.