IATA Hits Where They Ain't

      In America right now baseball is on everyone’s mind.
     I mention baseball in a story about IATA Cargo because once upon a time there was this player named Willie Keeler who at 5'4" and only 140 pounds, was one of the smallest men to ever play Major League baseball.
     But in 1894, he began a streak of eight seasons with 200 or more hits, while batting for a 371 average.
Somebody asked Wee Willie how a little guy could achieve such great averages that escaped most other regular sized players of the game?
     “I hit ’em where they ain’t,” Wee Willie Keeler said.
     Thinking about this past week’s effort by IATA Cargo in Warsaw Poland and being more than a bit obsessed with baseball, a thought connection is inescapable.
     What IATA Cargo is doing in Poland and many other places is bringing hands on, how-to professional ability to where air cargo can grow and drive not only local transportation, but also entire economies as well.
     The IATA Emerging Markets effort for the past couple of days in Warsaw will not be the biggest air cargo trade show of 2007.
     But in content, execution and just plain heart it may end up being among the two or three best.
     IATA Cargo is doing great things for the industry right now with its initiatives including e-freight, Security, Cargo 2000, CASS and the CNS Road Shows.
     There seems to have emerged under Head of Cargo Aleks Popovich an atmosphere at IATA of intellectualization for the entire air cargo process that is also working toward inclusion at as many places and levels as possible.
     What’s possible will be even clearer next year when IATA Cargo holds its second World Cargo Symposium in Italy.
     WCS promises to be the best air cargo event of 2008.
     When it comes to air cargo industry events there are many bigger players, in terms of dollar throughput or dollar requisite to be a part of, on the global scene right now.
     But to paraphrase Wee Willie, big and powerful IATA Cargo, based on what we saw in Warsaw this week, apparently has figured out how to get down to making air cargo better—by building this industry where it ain’t.
Geoffrey