Vol. 7  No. 45                                          WE COVER THE WORLD                                                                          Friday May 2, 2008

cargo counts Turkish Foothold

What counts is air cargo. Pictured in Izmir this week (L to R) Paul Schwaiger, managing director SunExpress, Peter Kolb, Consul General Germany at Izmir/Turkey, Nursel Gueven, co-owner of Turkish GSA SPAviationServices and Michael Stoermer, director commercial cargo counts GmbH.

     On the face of it, air cargo tonnage has not been too hot an issue for Turkish leisure carrier SunExpress so far.
     In fact, cargo only contributes about one percent to the carrier’s total revenue of €302 million euros, the Antalya-based airline posted in 2007.
     "However, as far as our profits are concerned cargo accounts for up to seven percent," states general manager Paul Schwaiger of SunExpress.
     Now in a world that looks at utilizing all available space whether above or on the ground, boxes and containers are getting some additional drive for the 1989 founded German-Turkish JV that belongs to Turkish Airlines and Deutsche Lufthansa (50/50%).
     "We expect a number of new incentives in this field," confirms Ersin Aydin, SunExpress head of cargo.
     Last year the airline that presently operates a fleet of fourteen B737-880s and three B757-200s reported a total of 1,200 tons on flights from Turkey to Western and Central Europe, mostly Germany, Switzerland, Austria and Poland.
     Until 2010 the fleet will grow to 25 aircraft, confirms Herr Schwaiger.
     Responsibility for renewed energy in the air freight business at the Turkish-German airline is agent, cargo counts (CC).
     Established in 2003 the subsidiary of Lufthansa Cargo (100%) offers total cargo management solutions for third-party airlines, including sales, booking, handling and related services.
     Consequently, cargo counts acts like a virtual airline without possessing any aircraft.
     In addition to SunExpress cc serves carriers such as clients like German leisure airline Condor, regional carrier Croatia Airlines and Portuguese EuroAtlantic Airways in its portfolio.
     "In mid-May we will definitely name another airline," Michael Stoermer cc's director commercial told Air Cargo News FlyingTypers.
     To fulfill the daily cargo business here in Turkey, cargo counts collaborates with a number of local GSA’s who supply both the necessary market knowledge and direct access to the shippers with whom they have a close working relationship.
     "In Izmir, for instance there are a substantial number of textile producers, car suppliers and IT related enterprises that rely on air transport," says Germany's General Consul Peter Kolb who has been based at the beautiful 3.5 million population city in Turkey for the last three years.
     To approach those industries and hopefully generate more cargo flow is the job of newly-founded SPAviationServices with which cargo counts has just inked a contract.
     As for SunExpress this means that Nursel Gueven and her team are now responsible for filling the bellies of the carrier on each flight from Turkey to international destinations.
     Not part of this deal however, are domestic services of the carrier such as flights from Istanbul to Antalya that are marketed by the SunExpress mother company Turkish Airlines Cargo directly.
     "Nursel is a perfect match since she knows the Lufthansa world pretty well," lauds Herr Stoermer.
     In fact Nursel, the co-owner of SPAviation ('SP'-stands for 'Sales Professionals') worked for the German carrier for 28 years in the airline's Istanbul and Izmir branches, and for 13 exclusively in air cargo.
     cargo counts' decision to hand over the selling of air freight to Nursel's SPAviation agency is quite a radical change to the former concept where Lufthansa Cargo was responsible for marketing the entire belly-hold capacity of SunExpress out of Turkey.
     But maybe no surprise here, as the former strategy did not really pay off very well, admits manager Stoermer.
     "The key problem was that they centralized the sales function at the Istanbul office at Ataturk Airport.
     But what we need are tailor made transports and service solutions for our clients that can only be developed together with shippers through every day contacts."
     This brought SPAviation into the game since the agent operates local offices at all three Turkish airports. SunExpress offers international flights at Istanbul's Sabiha Goekcen, Izmir and Antalya.
     As a consequence of cargo counts' strategic shift in Turkey "we expect double digit growth rates of
our air freight business in the months to come," Ersin Aydin said.
Heiner Siegmund


UPS Ups Two Women In Europe

     Romaine Seguin, (left) a 25-year veteran of UPS who has been leading the company’s South Europe District, has been promoted to vice president of operations for UPS’s entire Europe Region.
     Ms. Seguin will be responsible for small package operations in 47 countries and territories throughout Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
     Cindy Miller, (right) a 20-year veteran of UPS who headed the Metro Chicago District, has been named vice president of operations for the company’s South Europe District.
     Miller will be responsible for small package operations throughout Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, the Balkans, the Middle East and Africa
     Big move for small packages in Europe for UPS.
     Putting a good face on that business can’t hurt either

Recalling A Rome Humdinger

     Aleks Popovich IATA head of Cargo sums up the big World Cargo Symposium that took place March 3-6 in Rome like this:
     “I feel through our experience in Rome we've made a great breakthrough as a supply chain, in engaging with the voice and needs of our true customers.      “Through this dialogue we've confirmed the importance to our customer of addressing supply chain issues: cost via e-freight, reliability via Cargo 2000, and integrity via our new work on secure freight.
     “It’s also clear we have a critical job to do in promoting well-researched facts and actions we must take for air cargo and the environment.
     “The customer dialogue has really just begun.
     “We intend to take it through to our March 2009 symposium in Thailand.”
     The message that air cargo industry must unite to work for the common good, and has established the path to do so through IATA’s World Cargo Symposiums, was the new reality.
     While the organization’s messages of simplifying and listening to customers may seem self evident for any business, when every party involved in the air cargo industry has a different interpretation of what that means, there can be some deviations or lack of efficiency.
     IATA’s working to get everybody on the same page through discussions and panels of experts that should steer the future agenda of how to improve air cargo, spelling out what concerns everyone has and what needs to get done, and to continue producing symposiums that will right the industry on the same path of change. Next year’s event will be in Bangkok, and will not only listen to the voice of the customers, but go a step beyond and include more actual customers in the discussions that will shape the future of air cargo, IATA said.
     “(This symposium), we did a survey of participants to get a whole cross section of customer feedback, and one of the risks of that was: ‘What on earth would they say?’” said Aleks Popovich, IATA’s chief of cargo, speaking about Rome 2008. “I think the good news is that it confirmed that we’re on the right track with our agenda of E-Freight, saving costs, Cargo 2000, increased reliability, security, safety and the environment (agendas),” he said.
     “Getting the carriers and forwarders to agree that collectively we need to collaborate in having more customer dialog has been one of the big outcomes of this event, to the extent that we’re now agreeing to have a customer forum,” Mr. Popovich said.
     “We’re already planning for next year when we have the Cargo Executive Summit. So for the first time, we move in step. The cargo summit two years ago was just airlines, this year it was forwarders and airlines, next year it will be forwarders, customers and airlines. It’s a natural trend. If we don’t understand the voice of our customers, change won’t happen, we won’t be united. It’s very important,” Mr. Popovich said.
     He said he’d heard that participants at the Rome symposium were satisfied to see that IATA was taking the content of the event and “doing something with it.”
     “The commitments we’re making this year are greater than last year. We want to stretch our goals to succeed,” he said.
     During the closing remarks in Rome, Mr. Popovich thanked the participants, without whom, he said, the current agenda wouldn’t have been established.
     “This event didn’t happen by magic,” he said. “I want to thank all of you for taking precious time away from your offices. It’s thanks to you that we shaped this agenda; we couldn’t have done this if it weren’t for you participating in the various sessions. It’s a great example of taking the energy that’s in this room and translating it into action for the good of the industry. I think this was time well spent. I look forward to seeing more of you in Bangkok,” Mr. Popovich said.
George Frey

 

Quote Of The Day

    Airline business confidence in current and future profitability weakened sharply in Q1 2008.
    For the first time since our survey began in March 2005, expectations of changes in profitability were, on average, negative.
    Half of the respondents thought that profitability had decreased in Q1, while over 61% expected profitability to deteriorate further over the next 12 months.
    High and rising fuel prices remain a major concern, but the other half of a damaging “stagflation” scenario, i.e. weaker demand, is also cited as a major worry for profitability.”

IATA April 30

 

Airbus Positive China Forecast

     European plane maker Airbus forecasts that the Chinese Mainland will need some 2,670 new passenger aircraft and freighters from 2007 to 2026, with a total market value of US$329 billion, representing 11.6 percent of the world total demand for over 24,000 new aircraft in the next 20 years.
     According to Airbus' 2007-2008 Global Market Forecast (China) issued late last month the Chinese mainland will require more than 1,900 single aisle aircraft, nearly 700 twin-aisles and 190 very large aircraft (VLA).
     The number of VLAs, such as A380, is forecast to be on the rise as international traffic from and to China is to greatly increase and to be highly concentrated.
     Air cargo transportation in China is expected to grow six-fold and introduce some 130 new freighter aircraft over the next 20 years, leading to an eleven-fold expansion of its cargo fleet, from the current 45 to 471 in 2026 Airbus said. Average growth rate for China’s domestic air cargo market is estimated to be 10.5 per cent per year, and for its international market is 8.5 per cent.
     At the press conference, responding to China’s ongoing widebody aircraft project, Laurence Barron, president of Airbus China said:
     “We give much attention to China’s widebody aircraft project, but still don’t get the detail, and more discussions are needed.
     “If in the future, direct competition emerges between China’s large aircraft company and Airbus, our cooperation will be challenged.
     Also at the press conference, Airbus revealed its plan to launch a joint venture in China to make aircraft components.
     "We are studying the possibility of setting up the venture with AVIC II (China Aviation Industry Corporation II) and expect to finalize the deal as early as August," Laurence Barron said, without elaborating._
     Airbus expects to use the joint venture to produce composite material parts for its Airbus A350 model.
     As to Airbus’ development in China, John Leahy, Airbus Chief Operating Officer Customers said:
     "In terms of in-service aircraft, Airbus' share of the in-service fleet on the Chinese mainland has already increased from 7 per cent in 1995 to the current 38 per cent. Our aim is to reach 50 per cent in 2012,"
     "In the next 20 years, the greatest demand for passenger aircraft will come from China, second only to the United States," he added.
David

Boffo Numbers From Emirates

     Now that Emirates has released its figures for 2007 the numbers reported show that Emirates SkyCargo performed well with both revenue and tonnage increases during the year.
     SkyCargo carried 1.3 million tons of cargo, up 10.9 percent over 2006.
     Revenue increased 20 percent to AED 6.4 billion ($ 1.8 billion), up from AED 5.4 billion ($ 1.5 billion) in 2006-07.
     Cargo revenue contributed 19 percent to the airline’s total revenue.
     SkyCargo features a freighter fleet of 10 aircraft – five leased and five owned. In all, Emirates said that it carried freight in 114 aircraft, including bellyhold space in the passenger fleet, to 99 cities on six continents.

At Boeing 6,000 B737s Is A Living

     Boeing and Jakarta-based Lion Air celebrated the delivery of the airline's 10th B737-900ER.
     The airplane helps the airline to expand its service with new destinations throughout South and Southeast Asia.
     The B 737-900ER program was launched in July 2005 when Lion Air announced the initial order for 30 aircraft.
     Lion took delivery of the first B737-900ER in April 2007.
     To date Lion has ordered 178 of the type.
     But the stunning realization is that since 1967 more than 6,000 B737s have been ordered by airlines as Boeing has made a living from the twin jet.


Wings Over Africa

     Tunisair has signed a letter of acceptance with Airbus for the acquisition of three A350-800s, three A330-200s and ten A320s, as part of its major fleet development plan.
     Airbus says that Tunisair is the third African airline to order the A350 XWB. Tunisair currently already has 12 A320s, four A319s of which two have extended range capability and three A300-600s in operation.
     The A350 is expected to help the carrier eventually spread its wings to North America.


Helping Hand At handling counts

     Annabel Schwätter is the new Managing Director of Lufthansa Cargo, division handling counts GmbH.
     Christian Haug moves from MD handling counts position to New York as Director Sales and Handling USA Northeast and Mid-Atlantic.
     Annabel Schwätter at Lufthansa Cargo since 2000, has been hands-on holding handling positions.
     Must mean that she can handle handling counts, and somebody should give her a hand for that, don’t you think?

 


AirBridge Adds Asia To Russia

     AirBridgeCargo has launched non-stop services to Moscow from Shanghai and Hong Kong Using the recently delivered extended range Boeing 747 freighters, ABC is the first carrier to ever connect Shanghai and Hong Kong with Moscow by scheduled freighter service.
     The company hopes an edge of offering fastest delivery times and no handling in-transit will appeal to shippers as an ideal choice for such high-value and time-sensitive commodities as consumer electronics, commercial samples, fashion goods and luxury items—all in growing demand across Russia.
     From Moscow, AirBridgeCargo offers onward connections to Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Luxembourg.
     With Beijing in North China and Narita in Japan already connected with Moscow by non-stop scheduled services, ABC has now doubled the number of origins in Asia from where non-stop flights to the Russian capital are operated.
David