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Family Aid 2020
   Vol. 20 No. 26
Wednesday July 7, 2021
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     Agreement between the United States of America, the United Mexican States, and Canada (USMCA) Implementing Regulations Related to the Marking Rules, Tariff-rate Quotas, and Other USMCA Provisions is in the spotlight as Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on July 1 issued two of its three highly anticipated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) regulatory packages setting forth requirements on a range of issues.
     Trade attorneys advise customs brokers and freight forwarders should review, comment, and track the final outcome of these regulations and their application to North American cross-border trade to ensure compliance within their daily operations.
     CBP’s interim final rule includes implementing regulations for the preferential tariff treatment and related customs provisions of the USMCA.
     These rules, subject to comment within 60 days from publication, apply to goods from Canada and Mexico entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, on or after July 1, 2020.
For more click here.

Security Dogs
     

We now know that new rules from ICAO have forced change to air cargo as 100% industry screening went into effect June 30.
     Simply put, these ICAO international air transportation standards mandate that all-cargo aircraft flights receive the same level of security screening and scrutiny that cargo shipments on passenger fights do.
     So the shorthand is that as July unfolds, stakeholders in some cases are stepping up to a new reality.
     Expect air cargo webinars and discussion groups in plenty on this topic.
     Attention is drawn to a webinar later this month on July 21 put up by The Airforwarders Association. For more click here.


Brandon FriedEverybody’s Best Friend

     At some point (or maybe right away) when the question is security detection one aspect of the conversation inevitably goes to the dogs.


In Detection Dogs Rule

     If there is one truth in air cargo security that has remained supreme and unchallenged and actually untouched longer than anything that has been claimed or accomplished, it’s that today in 2021 mankind has not yet come up with a better way to insure safety aloft than employing bomb and contraband sniffing dogs.
     Air cargo leaders concur.
     “A properly imprinted and trained canine remains the most effective and operationally efficient tool for cargo screening,” says Brandon Fried, Execuitve Director, Airforwarders Association (pictured here with a TSA friend).
     But it goes beyond just industry promoters and marketing schemes.
     “After $19 billion spent over six years, the USA Pentagon realizes the best bomb detector is a dog,” wrote Dan Nosowitz in Popular Science Magazine.


Nosing Out Humans

     As example, although humans cannot smell TNT powder, a dog can.
     And what about those Vapor Wake dogs, trained at the excellent Auburn University Canine Performance Sciences School that you might observe occasionally in airport terminals and other applications.
     Those magnificent animals are trained to work anywhere tracking the invisible vapor trails the human stain leaves behind. By tracking the air in an enclosed or even open space, a Vapor Wake Dog can alert to the presence of a human bomb.


Whiffing Through Days Of Futures Past

     Dogs for thousands of years have had this talent that, as mentioned at the top, so far has gone unchallenged.
     But a huge investment of upwards of USD$40,000 is required to train and the numbers are limited to the supply of pure breds with the ability to do detection duty at an airport, Army base or mall near you.
     Additionally as we have experienced, dogs have one fatal flaw that applies to every breed:
     They simply do not live long enough!
     Also like us humans, dogs can sometimes make mistakes, or occasionally need a nap.

Auburn University Canine Program


Auburn Goes To The Dogs

     The upshot of all of this here is that an educational institution, Auburn University is deep dish into providing a baseline treasure of knowledge and information for anyone considering the move forward to meet advanced security all along the logistics chain.
     Some of the most experienced and probably the best non-biased information and best practices resource in the world of dogs can be found at Auburn University’s pioneering, collaborative research, which for more than 16 years has been enhancing the capabilities of dogs’ detection of hazardous substances to protect the world.


The Auburn Dog™

     The Auburn Dog™ is internationally recognized as being of the highest quality and capability for the interdiction of chemical, biological, and explosive threats in airports, train stations, sports arenas, and on city streets.
     What makes the Auburn Dog™ stand out among detector dogs?
     “It’s the focus of the university’s multidisciplinary team in scientific investigation and continual improvement of The Auburn Dog™, said Paul Waggoner, Canine Performance Sciences program co-director who invented and patented the process.
     “Auburn is using its wealth of research talent and capability across campus to provide a blueprint to breed and train the best detector dogs in the world.”

Paul Waggoner, Gopi Deshpande, Jeff Katz and Tom Denney


Dogs Olfactory Receptors Nose Out Humans

     “Dogs are inherently great detectors thanks to 300 million olfactory receptors, compared to only six million for humans, and the significance of odor in guiding their behavior.
     “We want to maximize the level of protection provided by the dogs’ remarkable sensory capabilities,” Mr. Waggoner said.


Dogs Get MRI Before Training

     One example of a university-wide collaboration is the use of MRI scanning to noninvasively study dogs’ brain activity to possibly pinpoint—prior to expensive training—whether the dogs can become top detectors.
     Jeff Katz, psychology professor in the College of Liberal Arts, is working with Gopi Deshpande, electrical engineering professor in the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, and Tom Denney, director of the MRI Research Center, to identify how canine behavior and cognitive abilities are related to brain activity in dogs in the program.
     “One of the things we're very much interested in is developing an endophenotype, which is basically looking at behavior and looking at the brains in these dogs to see if we can find predictors early on in their training that will tell us which ones will be a premier dog, a successful dog.
     “And, what dog is not going to be,” Katz said. “This is helpful in identifying not only the best dogs, but also as a cost-saving measure since training these dogs costs thousands of dollars.”


One Tough Cop

Harald Zielinski     Thoughts drift back to conversations with our old friend Harald Zielinski, retired now, who once upon a time was the top security officer for Lufthansa Cargo. His responsibilities included overseeing LH’s critical headquarters system hub in Frankfurt.
     Harald, as the son of a street cop in Frankfurt, where both father and son served with the local police department there, combined the practical realities of his time with knowledge gained.
     “People are not stupid or lazy; they are just busy keeping things moving,” Harald would always preface his conversation.
     “The industry should speak with one voice in fighting for a worldwide, harmonized security regime,” Harald said in 2010.
     Once, while supposing what the ideal environment would be before checking out cargo prior to flight, Harald said:
     “Never mind using just dogs and other similar methods to check out freight.
     “What air cargo needs is a giant sniffer that can surround and detect entire containers of freight in one felled swoop.”
     Harald, the dreamer and doer saw advanced security as an emerging reality; we detected his impatience to get 100% secure air cargo right, period.
     In 2021, Harald is retired, living somewhere in Florida and the ICAO mandate feels a bit as though it arrived at the speed of baby steps 11 years later.
     And that giant sniffer machine?
Well, today there are several Explosive Detection Systems on the market, from Smiths Systems, Rapiscan and others.
     But yet today still the world’s most effective mobile detection system remains the humble dog.
     Just make sure with the care and feeding of air cargo’s best friend in 2021.
Geoffrey


Chuckles For July 7, 2021

Pumping TrafficAviation In the swamp until 2025—“The situation remains very challenging for European aviation. We’re heading into summer 2021 and most restrictions are still in place despite encouraging progress on the vaccination front. So while we Eamonn Brennanare anticipating an uptick in summer traffic, our most likely medium term scenario envisages a coordinated lifting of restrictions by Q1 2022 between regions, which facilitates more long-haul travel. We’ll probably have around 50% of 2019 traffic for all of 2021 (5.5 million flights). By the end of next year, traffic will only have recovered to 72% of 2019 levels, and will only get back to close to where we were pre-pandemic by 2025,” says Eamonn Brennan, (left) Director General, Eurocontrol . . . Winken-Blinken: The recent delivery of 2.5M doses of the Moderna vaccine from the United States to Islamabad, Pakistan highlights friendship and cooperation on COVID-19. “We are committed,” said U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, “to bringing this pandemic to an end around the world.” . . . On July 1 A350 Moderna Vaccine to Pakistan(registration D-AIXP) “Lufthansa & You" livery flew FRA to LAX last weekend . . . United Airlines' June 29 order of 70 Airbus A321neo-aircraft & 200 B737Max signals a narrow body future for business class among other things. United stepping out quickly during the U.S. post pandemic recovery with the biggest orders (USD$30 billion) in airline history for new airplanes from both Boeing and Airbus, and an earlier massive order in the yet to fly smaller electric airplane gains the carrier an advantage over competitors, as COVID-19 fades in North America faster than anywhere else . . . B737MaxHopscotching Headlines—At the moment the pandemic is far from over. IATA figures remain down, as the rest of the world struggles to regain passenger traffic. As June ended the number was 53% off 2019 levels . . . Association of Asia Pacific Airlines said, May numbers of 1.3 million passengers flying international routes was just 4.3% versus May 2019 . . . Airlines for America numbers on June 30, 2021 saw passenger volumes internationally limping along at 45% pre-crises on international routes . . . It’s Summer, Jump in the Sandbox! Etihad Airways, Qatar Airways, ELAL, Singapore Airlines, Air Arabia, Emirates and Oman Air and some others have all opened up flights as Thailand’s quarantine-free tourism pilot program for the resort island of Phuket is now in full swing. The island, which was hit hard by economic losses during the pandemic, started welcoming fully-vaccinated tourists on July 1, 2021. The “Phuket Sandbox” program, that industry watchers are focused on right now, is hoping to jumpstart Thailand’s ailing tourism industry that has been reeling from pandemic losses (like everywhere else for more than a year . . . Saudi Arabia, in a bid to put itself on the enhanced airline map of the world, reportedly is going to launch a new national Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmanairline. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said he wants a transportation and logistics effort that would land the Kingdom as the fifth-biggest air transit hub in the world. The Saudi expansion comes on the heels of Riyadh announcing it would cease awarding contracts to firms that do not set up regional headquarters in the Kingdom. The new airline is in line with an effort to create new industries including tourism, and to more than double travel volume via the Kingdom to 100 million by 2030, from its present day-40 million in 2019. The move comes at a time of massive losses in UAE with Emirates reporting an incredible USD$5.5 billion annual loss for its fiscal year recently that required a massive government bailout. Neighbor Etihad Airways, that today is a financial basket case, has unsuccessfully spent billions investing in airlines that failed, whilst falling way short of the mark in its attempt to build Abu Dhabi into a major hub . . .

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Elephant line up at Amer Fort, Jaipur, Rajasthan
Small steps back to normal . . . Mahouts with their elephants wait for tourists that so far are few and far between at the historical Amer Fort, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India that reopened on June 16, 2021 after authorities eased some restrictions in the ongoing Covid-19 lockdown.


COVID Devastation of India

(New Delhi, June 21, 2021) —Why do we still seem to be living in denial? The second COVID wave that struck major metros and cities—in fact, the whole of India—taking away near and dear ones does not seem to have jolted us.
     Why else would we not press the accelerator on vaccinations?
     Why else would India media keep on suppressing COVID deaths?
     The second wave took away relatives and friends. A cousin with a 10-year-old daughter passed away simply because he could not get oxygen and proper medical care.      A nephew could not perform the last rites for his mother. And there are many more.


Government Clueless

     But there were leaders – both from the government and the opposition – who went about holding election rallies that saw thousands.
     To top it all, the government allowed the Kumbh Mela – simply because it happens to be the largest Hindu religious gathering.
     The Mela saw the gathering of millions, of course without adherence to COVID protocols. Most treacherous of all, it now appears that the COVID tests that were done for the Mela were fake.
     Strange are the ways that our government works.
     The delay in vaccinating the large Indian population has resulted in confusion and apprehension.
     Worse our leaders continue to remain in denial about preparations for the second wave, the deaths due to COVID and the oxygen fiasco.


Repression Drives Fake Media

     Perhaps, what is more saddening is the manner in which our leaders want to brush off the hard truths about the economy. We have a huge number of unemployed, inflation is staring us in the face and petrol prices are around $1.50 per litre (Rs 100). But our leaders say that it is a temporary blip. And if anyone was to comment or write the truth, it is viewed as anti-national and often a term in jail.


Tweets Tell of the Hell

     The frightening condition of India has erupted in Tweets like:
     “I must confess I'm not surprised anymore. I've lost whatever little hope I had of our country and countrymen. Personally I believe no government can help us get out of the absolute ruin we are in.” (@AnindaManna1969).
     Or, the West Bengal Finance Minister saying: “Putting tax on life-saving drugs is criminal, this government is totally unaware of the people's needs.” (@DrAmitMitra), and “Unemployment at its worst in nearly 3 decades. 230 million Indians pushed into poverty. Does India’s post-#Covid19 situation threaten #Modi’s political hegemony?”


Hope from the Heavens

     The silver lining, however, has been air cargo.
     Air cargo has delivered, despite aviation being the worst hit.
     Not a day passes without us being informed that vaccinations have reached some Tier-2 or Tier-3 airport.
     Air cargo in India has a potential that suddenly almost overnight is being recognized in almost every quarter.
     Blue Dart, for example, has been facilitating the transport of oxygen concentrators amongst other essential COVID relief medical equipment across the length and breadth of India.
     As Balfour Manuel, Managing Director, Blue Dart pointed out:
     “Blue Dart continues to use its fleet of Boeing 757 freighters and resources at its disposal to play a key role in transporting O2 concentrators and critical medical supplies within the country; through our scheduled and International charter flights, ground network; supporting individuals and corporations alike.
     “Through out this cruel pandemic, our people, have demonstrated their ‘Can do’ attitude standing true to our value of customer-centricity.”

Ankara Turkey June 28, 2021


More Home Work Deeper Into Summer

     Now it's July – and hopefully more of the country’s businesses will open up.
     We hope and pray to see less dependence on physical offices.
     Work from home has become a lot sophisticated, thanks to technology.
     And although cargo entails a lot of physical contacts, technology will be able to cut down the physical presence at offices during dispatches. This shift to technology will help the industry stakeholders to move to block chain and AI and become even more efficient.
Tirthankar Ghosh


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Airplane Contrails

     For some time now the ominous truth has been that some of what we thought was good for us can also be bad for someone else.
     Take the pleasure of looking up into the sky at long thin and often romantic, really quite beautiful contrails from big passenger and cargo aircraft flying across the familiar to places yet to be discovered.
     Closer to the ground Sky Writers in summer with messages above beaches and homes are one thing. Up where the big jets play, it turns out those contrails of water vapor departing aircraft engines combining with water frozen in the air also generate residue that can form clouds and trap warmer air below causing cross-currents in our increasing environmentally aware world.
     In Europe tests are now underway by The German Aerospace Center (DLR) and The Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre (MUAC) to reduce aviation’s non-CO? climate and in this case that includes contrails.
     One method to diminish or possibly even erase contrails researchers say may be flight level changes, for example diverting aircraft 2,000 feet up or down from their normal flight path.
     But what about the good?
     Contrails like clouds in the sky are often strikingly beautiful and have inspired poets like Sandra Silkanowitz mother of a pilot who muses:
                    Clear, knifelike, the jet
                    cuts the sky,
                    tracking blue with vivid white,
                    colored by the sun’s prisms
                    in pale streams of gold.
                    Feather wisps of cloud
                    trail the wake
                    and dissolve into blue.
                    The jet is gone.
                    It leaves no mark,
                    save the imprint of memory.


Geoffrey

If You Missed Any Of The Previous 3 Issues Of FlyingTypers
Access complete issue by clicking on issue icon or
Access specific articles by clicking on article title
FT061521
Vol. 20 No. 23
125 Million Reasons PayCargo Rules
Chuckles for June 15, 2021
Air Canada Freighters Come October
Hit Or Miss Trade Shows
Pumping Traffic
No American Way

FT062321
Vol. 20 No. 24
Air Cargo Needs Ability To Hit The Curve
Chuckles for June 23, 2021
Turnover Leaves Air Cargo At a Loss
Doing The Can-Can
Lulu Loves Physical


Vol. 20 No. 25
FIATA And PayCargo Mega Deal
What Makes Jason Berry Run?
Chuckles for July 1, 2021
PumpingTraffic
Baseball High As The Flag on July 4


Publisher-Geoffrey Arend • Managing Editor-Flossie Arend • Editor Emeritus-Richard Malkin
Film Editor-Ralph Arend • Special Assignments-Sabiha Arend, Emily Arend

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