#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE
Wednesday
February 5,
2025
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#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE |
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| Vol. 24 No. 5 | Wednesday
February 5,
2025 |
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The Kelly Act |
We think, remembering people in our business is a good idea and also some fun during our 5Oth year. Right now, up and down the line in air cargo United Airlines Cargo is a huge story. Big part of that story is the first class team in place around the world and at company headquarters in Chicago’ Willis Tower. Here we step back a bit and remember our friend, Michael Kelly, the Cargo Communications Manager who served at United Airlines Cargo reporting to Jan Krems, when Jan flew into town and blew the doors off at Willis over a decade ago. During the pandemic, Jan absolutely pulled the airline's chestnuts out of the fire with his bold and beautiful COVID plan that sent tens of thousands of cargo aircraft into the otherwise empty skies. Mike retired in 2020 after several decades of service. He was an absolute professional in every sense of the word, who shared and enhanced the sense of excitement as cargo came front and center as the biggest transportation story in this decade. Unfortunately not all stories have happy endings, or come out equal at every level. The airlines, as we all know by now, have had to stick to very stringent guidelines to be able to stay in business. Even today, as routes close, then open, and are in some cases closing again, making it necessary for managers to keep cutting jobs up and down the line and in some cases contracting work out. Mike loved the cargo business and was someone, who always made me think of The Hartigans and the Irishry that once ruled in United Chicago, back when UA operated that gigantic 10-story horizontal office building in Des Plaines near O’Hare Airport. One day I had to walk from one office to another, in that building to get somewhere. I think I was visiting Scott Dolan, when he was the cargo boss there. At one point I had walked for what seemed like an hour, so I finally called up Scott and asked if we could meet halfway before I passed out. One thing Mike, Jan and I always did every summer was get together. We would have a session in Willis, where you can look out the window down at everything, including some twenty-five floors beneath our perch at another building, a city jail with prisoners in action, exercising on a roof. But our get together allowed some face time at a big time airline, United, to build story lines aplenty. It turned out to be the period of the most exciting transformation after Krems got there. Today many of the people of that era have retired, including Mike, who the last time we spoke was still right here with his eclectic collection of great musical artists of the 1930s big band era and artists like “Whispering” Jack Smith and Dick Haymes. Once we looked for memories in a file cabinet or phone numbers on a rolodex and thought about friends. A break for a coffee at work would allow a moment to read a paper or an email as time moved inexorably toward the cell phone sending us instructions. Now our pictures are timed on our phones to appear as favorites in no particular order. I wrote this in one go just after this picture appeared on that little slice of electronics on my desk. Maybe you recall The Kelly Air Mail Act that was enacted February 2, 1925, which authorized the U.S. Postmaster General to contract for air mail carriage at three bucks a mile and that led directly to the formation of the U.S. airlines. Well, move over long dearly departed Rep. Clyde Kelly of Pennsylvania. In our generation, Mike Kelly delivered word pictures of what makes a great airline work and, he did it for decades with wonderful spirit and élan. It was also a lot of fun just walking down the street with him. Geoffrey |
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 Vol. 24 No. 2 Port Strike Averted Chuckles for January 14, 2025 EMO Trans By The Book Fruit Logistica February 5 |
 Vol. 24 No. 3 Air Cargo At The Kursaal Chuckles for January 24, 2024 Scoring Between Flights Year Of The Snake A Tale Of Two Airports |
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Publisher-Geoffrey Arend • Managing
Editor-Flossie Arend • Editor Emeritus-Richard Malkin |
Send comments and news to geoffrey@aircargonews.com
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