FT021219

#INTHEAIREVERYWHERE

Vol. 18 No. 12	Tuesday February 12, 2019

  See you in September . . . As Virgin Atlantic welcomes cargo potential for its new start-up daily flights between UK and Tel Aviv September 25, Dominic Kennedy, Managing Director of Virgin Atlantic Cargo declared,
  “This is a really exciting new route for us and plays to our strengths in terms of quick connections to and from US and our proven expertise in carrying the major types of products moving in and out of Israel.
  “We know customers will welcome not only the choice of more capacity but also the opportunity to benefit from our network reach and service levels.
  “We expect cargo to make a significant contribution to the success of the route,” Director Dominic said.
  Virgin Atlantic’s daily Airbus A330-300 flights will offer 20 tons of capacity on each service.
For the record last year (2018) saw particularly strong growth in shipments of pharmaceuticals, perishables and high-tech cargo to Tel Aviv, which rose 35%, 7% and 5% year-on-year respectively, according to market data.

We caught up recently with Andy Cornwell II, who serves as Regional Sales Manager, Northern Europe for American Airlines Cargo. Andy lives in Teddington, Greater London, United Kingdom.
     Teddington is a green upscale part of town with a history going back hundreds of years. That history also includes a time during World War II, when General Dwight D. Eisenhower planned the D-Day landings at his Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF) at Camp Griffiss in Teddington’s Bushy Park.
     Today a small plaque in the 1,100-acre park, (LaGuardia Airport by comparison sits on 680 acres) dedicated by the Royal Air Force recalls that time.
     For his part, Andy, who commutes daily to work from Teddington, finds it no battle to wax enthusiastic about air cargo in general, and working with his team at American Airlines in particular.
     Andy joined American in 2009 whilst working on his MBA at Buckinghamshire New University at High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire.
     Asked why he chose air cargo Andy is completely up front:
     “I’m not sure I did,” Andy said.
     “I think air cargo chose me!
     “Like many people I’ve spoken to over the years, I entered the world of cargo only as a stop gap before university.
     “However, I really enjoyed the environment and quickly realized how much of an impact the air cargo industry has on everyday lives, whether that be moving fresh produce/flowers, lifesaving pharmaceuticals, pets or the ubiquitous and indispensable smart phone!
     “I did, however, complete my university experience years later, whilst still working full time in cargo, which actually allowed me to align my chosen modules to the world of cargo.”

The Brexit Thing

     “A sizeable portion of our volumes flying from the U.K. originates in mainland Europe, where we’ve not seen an impact to our operation.
     “Although there is lots of uncertainty around Brexit right now, we’re focused on continuing to provide the seamless movement of goods into and out of the U.K. however we can, to help meet customers’ needs — whether that’s by truck, via our interline partners, or moving more on our direct flights from mainland Europe.
     “So far, we haven’t seen much of a change on cargo movement to and from LHR, which remains one of our biggest cargo hubs worldwide.
     “We’re simply working to ensure that goods are able to continue moving uninterrupted between the E.U. and the U.K.”

Keeps On Trucking

     “Road feeder service has been a focus for us over the past few years.
     “In 2018 alone, we had more than 20,000 truck movements across Europe.
     “American Cargo has looked to grow our network by utilizing trucks to operate where we do not fly directly, or where we are capacity-constrained.”

Goes With The Flow

“For example, we utilize truck service to flow business around Europe from markets where we see strong demand (like Germany) to others where we might have excess capacity.
“We use the same approach in the U.S., making use of an extensive trucking network to offer service from new origins and to new destinations including offering custom solutions, such as trucking directly to customer premises. We’re always looking for ways to ensure we can move our customers’ cargo, no matter where it needs to go,” Andy said.

2018 Was A Very Good Year

“All our gateways performed extremely well in 2018. In fact, as an organization, American Airline Cargo had a record-breaking year, posting our best ever operational performance, volume and revenue numbers.
“LHR moved more volume than in prior years, while at the same time improving performance to be the highest in the system, which is testament to the great efforts and collaboration made by our Commercial and Operation teams.”

Good All Over

“American Cargo also performed particularly well out of Frankfurt (FRA), Amsterdam (AMS), Dublin (DUB), Madrid (MAD) and Barcelona (BCN).
“We are extremely focused on customer engagement and interaction and want to continue working closely with our customers to ensure we’re offering the best possible service in the industry.”

Investing In Change

     “It is probably a lot quicker to explain what hasn’t changed rather than what has!
     “The eAWB initiative is a huge focus for us — we’re leading the way in eAWB growth, but the main goal must be to streamline industry processes and go fully electronic.
     “Our team is also extremely focused on increasing the ease with which customers work with us.
     “We’re currently investing heavily in updating our technology with our iCargo project, called Project Payload, which will see the number of systems reduced from 90 to eight.
     “This initiative will provide improved visibility and efficiencies for the airline and our customers.”

What Could Change To Improve Cargo In UK?

     “Firstly, I’d like to see much more investment from airport authorities around Heathrow (LHR) and other U.K. airports in terms of infrastructure, transport, and technology.
     “For example, it would make sense to increase our interline business, but it usually takes far longer to transfer goods 100 meters from one carrier’s shed to the other than it is to fly the goods from the other side of the world.
     “We need to add efficiencies and transparency to the chain, which will be helped with technology.
     “New technologies would also assist with and reduce unnecessary truck movements through careful planning and automated notifications directly between Customs, handling agent, customer, and truck operator.

Someone Who Changed My Life

     “One of the first people I worked for was John Smith, who was Managing Director at American Airline Cargo after retiring from British Airways.
     “He taught me the importance of earning respect through hard work and commitment, always being flexible when seeking customer solutions, and how to ensure one has a healthy work/life balance.
     “John retired 15 years ago, but I still meet up with him when I can.”

The Service Failure Lesson

“There have been a few service failures I can recall, but the one thing I have learned is we are judged not on whether there is a service failure, but in how one recovers the situation and communicates with others during that process.
“Always be honest and upfront with the customer and advise of any issues or changes as soon as possible, offering a solution.”
Geoffrey

Coo Coo Keukenhof
   Snow continues to visit us in the northeast, but our trustiest weatherman, the groundhog, has forecast an early spring, so we should soon be amid a flurry of flowers rather than snowflakes. The promise of warm weather couldn’t come at a better time, too, with the month of love already underway and the desire for fresh-cut flowers only growing.
   This is also that time of year when the favorite story is who flew how many flowers for the romance of Valentine’s Day (Thursday, February 14) or upcoming Eastertide on Sunday, April 21, 2019.
   As an avid knitter, there are two things that entice me most: texture and color. I have a habit of appreciating combinations of color and texture that might go unnoticed by non-knitters, and it’s a habit I know I share with my knitting brethren. Piet Mondrian’s famous blocks of color have found their way into a blanket for my father; the crystalline, chameleonic Blue Pond of Hokkaido, Japan, will eventually inspire a neck-hugging cowl in my collection.
   It has long been a dream of mine to visit Keukenhof in the Netherlands. The famous ‘Garden of Europe’ is a fount of inspiration for anyone working with color, texture, and pattern. With over 7 million flower bulbs planted across 79 acres, Keukenhof has hosted over 50 million global visitors since opening. It hosts several garden types, from a classic English landscape garden to a meditative Japanese country garden, and every year it designs seven new inspiration gardens to delight and intrigue new visitors.
   When most people think of flowers and the Netherlands, they think of the iconic image of thickly striped rows of tulips forming a Missoni-like rainbow of color composition. The tulip, more than any other flower, has come to symbolize the Netherlands. And nothing augurs the coming spring more than the tulip. Planted while the world is still cold and dark, tulips are the manifestation of a prayer for warm weather, a supplication to the earth for sunny days. It should come as no surprise, then, that in the tulip’s native Arabic tongue, its name is composed of the same letters that form the word ‘Allah.’
   We talk about perishables in air cargo, referring to food, plants, pharmaceuticals, but laypeople tend to forget that most goods aren’t ubiquitous throughout the world—that certain goods were birthed in places far flung from where they now reside, and tulips are no exception.
   Tulips worked in cargo far, far before anyone reading this. Perhaps not air cargo, but still. Tulip cultivation dates back to 10th century Persia, with extensive cultivation efforts occurring throughout the Ottoman Empire. They originated, however, as a wildflower in Central Asia. While ‘the flower shop of the world’ holds festivals in honor of the tulip, tulips are, in fact, not Dutch at all. The word tulip is loosely translated from the Ottoman Turkish word tülbend to the Persian word delband, which means ‘turban’—an association assumed to be derived by the similarity in shape between the turban and the tulip.
Keukenhof Holland Flower Power Keukenhof   Tulips came to the Netherlands by way of the Flemish botanist Carolus Clusius. In 1593, Carolus became the Chair of Botany at the Hortus Botanicus at the University of Leiden. The University gave Carolus a small plot of land (no more than 40 meters squared) behind the Academy in which to grow plants for the purpose of medical students’ studies. It was one of the earliest botanical gardens, and certainly one of the most influential moments in Dutch history. Having obtained tulip bulbs from a friend—Ogier Ghiselain de Busbecq, the ambassador of Constantinople—Carolus cultivated the first Dutch tulips in 1594. The curved, gorgeously seductive flowers soon exploded in popularity—at the time, no other European flower had the same concentration of color or uniqueness of shape. Eventually, Carolus’ entire garden of tulips was raided for the bulbs.
   By the early to mid 1600s, tulips had become so popular that they created the first economic bubble, a period known as “Tulipomania.” Because it takes 7-12 years to cultivate a tulip from seed to bulb, and because certain tulips, having contracted viruses, began to display extraordinarily unique striped patterning, tulips began selling for more than what most skilled laborers earned in a year. They became a commodity and a status symbol and were so popular and inflated in price, for a brief period before the bubble burst, they actually served as currency.
Flossie Arend    By the mid 1630s, tulips were a staple export—one of the Netherland’s most precious pieces of cargo. Despite the bubble having burst, the tulip still enjoys this position today.
   As a knitter, one of the supreme joys of making something comes from seeing how the stitches add up, stacking atop one another, to form what was just utterly formless. That a simple piece of string should wind around itself and, in the smallest increments, stitch by stitch, become a portrait of creation in its most basic form. Every year, the Keukenhof performs the same feat with tulips, planting colorfully coordinated bulbs in careful arrangements to form a flower mosaic.
   This year, Flower Power is Keukenhof’s 2019 theme. Flower Power with its early 1970s vibe is a great theme, for celebrating the 70th Keukenhof. Flower Power, the strength of flowers!
Flossie Arend

Keukenhof opens March 3, 2019, for more click here.

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