Vol. 7 No. 137                                              WE COVER THE WORLD                                          Wednesday December 10, 2008

 

Air India Freighters Up Or Down

     The 2008 Air India Cargo saga continues.
     After that firm commitment recently from Air India to Air Cargo News FlyingTypers that the cargo unit will continue, now comes word that one of AI’s old Boeing 737-200s is on the block to be sold to the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Fresh.
     Reliance Fresh, as the name suggests, is the retail outfit of Reliance Industries Ltd. (RIL) that is a huge purveyor of vegetables and groceries all over India.
     Though both Air India and RIL have refused to comment on the sale directly there are indications from sources that Mukesh Ambani could either go for an outright purchase of one of AI’s old Boeing freighters or if that does not happen, perhaps a lease deal will be concluded.
     Either way, Reliance according to media here has embarked on an ambitious four-year plan to invest more than Rs 25,000 crore in its retail venture.
     Earlier this year ACNFT reported that Mukesh Ambani had joined hands with Naresh Goyal and bought seven percent of Jet Airways.
     The thought is that Naresh and Mukesh are a good fit as both have strong ties in the air cargo business.
     In any case the economic reality of December 2008 has cast a different perspective on those previously announced plans that Reliance would acquire up to 40 airplanes to service its Reliance Fresh outlets.
     Late last year Reliance had said that it was going to build a mixed fleet of cargo-carrying aircraft to move produce, vegetables and other perishables from outlying centers in the country into metro retail outlets in big metropolitan Indian cities.
     Mukesh Ambani has called the scheme "farm to fork".
     Well the fork is also in the road to big plans, as that scheme appears to be on the back burner for now at least, save for maybe one old well traveled Air India B737 freighter.
     For its part, Air India or the merged entity of Air India and Indian, NACIL, has more than 140 aircraft in its fleet.
     Of these, eight are freighters (four Boeing 737-200s and four Airbus A310-300s).
     One of AI's B737 freighters was sold outright to India Post, the government-owned postal department earlier this year.
     Although Air India's Jitendra Bhargava, Executive Director (PR), said that RIL had not approached the carrier “for an outright purchase,” speculation about Air India selling its freighters or other assets will continue to make news here as the airline combination of      AI and Indian Airlines now called NACIL in 2007-2008 delivered huge, unsustainable losses.
Tirthankar Ghosh

 


Toughest Two Years Still Ahead

     “We think the airline industry’s toughest 2-year revenue environment in post-war WW II years lie ahead.”
     As the price of oil dips down to levels not seen since almost five years ago, some people might be wondering what is the latest forecast for 2008?
     IATA’s chief economist Brian Pearce who keeps track of these things would probably given the season, and his natural buoyant nature, prefer to deliver better news.
     But IATA’s numbers guy remains rock solid in predicting that industry losses, “are virtually unchanged,” at $5bn although the estimate was $5.2bn in the September forecast.
     “The average oil price for 2008 now $100/b (was $113/b) but revenues lower by similar amount, as recession hits.
     “Yesterday’s oil price closed at $42/barrel.
     “The 'consensus' and futures market forecast for 2009 is now $60/b (was $110/b) .
     “But widespread industry hedging delays full benefits of lower spot oil price, although industry wide the fuel bill is still down some $32bn.
     “Pre-emptive capacity cuts continue, especially in U.S., where the forecast is for further reduction up to another 2.5% next year to save costs.
     “However we now expect deep recession in 2009 causing 3% fall in RPKs (was +3%) and 5% fall in FTKs (was +2.5%).
     “Revenues are now expected to fall 6.5% in 2009 (was +7%) or -$35bn.
     “As a result the industry forecast is for loss in 2009, but slightly less than 2008, at -$2.5 billion.
     “There will be larger losses in most regions, including Europe and Asia-Pacific in 2009.”

DHL Innovates Logistics

     Aviation and space technology, automotive, medicine, the pharmaceutical industry and science - those in general are the main drivers of innovative breakthrough. But what about the logistics sector? So far their members have profited from ideas other industries came up with—think of containers provided by the maritime players, the RFID technology or the GPS navigation system that a growing number of vehicles are equipped with.
     To put an end to this trend, in March 2007 Deutsche Post subsidiary DHL set up an Innovation Center in Troisdorf near Cologne. There, their own experts together with industrial partners like IBM, Motorola or SAP try to enhance the supply chain by developing innovative and practical solution for every day’s work. So a think tank of 30 scientists, specialists and innovators was formed, working in interdisciplinary projects for finding solutions for a better, less costly and more environmental friendly flow of goods.
     Now, a year and a half after being set up, some leading brains were honored for their outstanding logistics solutions that have been put into practice.
     “The solutions from our DHL Innovation Center open up new avenues to respond to tomorrow’s customer requirements,” emphasized John Allan, (pictured left) Deutsche Post’s Chief Financial Officer and Management Board Member.
     The scope of innovations ranges from climate-neutral shipments to the seamless monitoring of temperature-controlled high-tech medicines.
     Deutsche Post’s own staff contributed many of them. Acting as manager of the company’s patent applications, the DHL Innovation Center collects ideas from their more than 500,000 employees and assesses whether they might be suitable for patenting. The results of this effort are about a 100 patents in Germany that Deutsche Post applied for last year. One such patent license was awarded to a project called “Roboterzelle Light”. It’s a machine created by DHL’s manager Hermann Franck that enables faster sorting of packages by automatically lifting the items from a standard pallet and putting them on a conveyor belt for further processing. Franck was recognized for his sorting robot by the international jury, among them Chris Caplice of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Professor Eckard Minx of Daimler AG, Professor Michael Schenk of German think tank Fraunhofer Institut and Doctor Keith Ulrich of the DHL Innovation Center.
 
Peter Landsiedel, (right) CEO of DHL Global Forwarding, Asia-Pacific congratulating Hermann Franck (left) on his Innovation award.

    Other DHL winners were Supriya Rao Patwardhan and Ashish Saxena from Singapore that made it possible for customers to send their shipment orders electronically. Thanks to their “eMailShip” innovation more than 100,000 shipments have already been deployed that way.
     In the category “Most Innovative Customer” German retailer Metro AG was honored for introducing the RFID system at their Future Stores all across France. Every year about 1.3 million pallets are given radio labeling, enabling contactless and automatic monitoring along the supply chain.
     A second winner was the Allianz Group. Since July this year the Munich-based insurance giant has sent its entire mail and advertising letters climate-neutrally – making it more than 140 million items per year. This was triggered by Deutsche Post’s offering of climate-neutral door to door transports either by van, vessel or plane from origin to destination.
     Next was a carbon-neutral warehouse DHL opened Thursday on behalf of telecommunication client O2 in the United Kingdom. By using geothermic energy for either heating or cooling the distribution center, the yearly emission of 760 tons of greenhouse gases can be prevented. This is the amount of carbon dioxide, 150 flights from London to Sydney, Australia and back would blast into our atmosphere.
Heiner Siegmund


Emirates Ramps Up India

     This promises to be another success story, courtesy the downturn in the economy. Dubai-based carrier Emirates has plans to take its cargo capacity from India to 2,647 tonnes by February 2009 following the airline's increased number of flights.
     Said an enthusiastic Orhan Abbas, Emirates Vice-President (India and Nepal): "Cargo movement will gain momentum with increased capacity to support the export of pharmaceuticals, vaccines, garments, chemicals, meat, fruits, vegetables etc., to the Middle East, Africa, Europe and America."
     The current cargo capacity of Emirates from Mumbai is 572 tonnes, which will be increased to 641 tonnes. Cargo capacity from Delhi too will see an increase from the 306 tonnes to 389 tonnes every week.
     The planned hike in the uplift from Indian cities comes in the wake of the airline's decision to introduce seven additional flights per week each to Mumbai and Delhi. The airline at present operates 28 flights from Mumbai and 18 flights from Delhi every week. Even Bangalore would see an increase in cargo capacity. Emirates presently ferries around 250 tonnes every week. The tonnage will increase to 302 tonnes with the introduction of five additional flights in its present 15 weekly flights.
     Said Abbas, "This increase is expected to provide significant thrust to goods movement from Bangalore which exports electronic hardware, engineering goods, chemicals and pharmaceuticals and readymade garments."
     Emirates has planned out a phased expansion in the number of flights.
     It will be adding 31 weekly flights to its existing services in India between now and February 2009. In fact, this is the second major expansion campaign by the carrier in 2008. The enhanced capacity will make Emirates the single largest international carrier in the Indian skies, with 163 weekly flights to 10 gateways.
     The expansion will be implemented in a phased manner with Mumbai and Delhi getting the largest share. The other destinations that will see more Emirates flights would be Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Kochi.
Tirthankar Ghosh

 

GAC opened a new logistics office in Warsaw ‘the airfreight hub of Poland,’ said Jaroslaw Kasprzyk right, (Sales Manager, GAC Poland). The new office joins GAC’s two existing bases in Poland at the ports of Szczecin and Gdynia . . . While business and the price of fuel plummets almost everywhere else, FedEx Freight and FedEx National LTL said that it is hiking rates 5.7 % starting January 5, 2009. Both less-than-truckload (LTL) companies are part of FedEx Freight Corp. . . . Meantime Jet Airways (India) is leasing out five new aircraft to Gulf Air and Turkish Airlines . . . UPS opened its hub in Shanghai located in Shanghai Pudong International Airport saying everything about the facility was built for speed and reliability . . . China issued standards for the domestic freight forwarding industry drafted by China International Freight Forwarders Association and others. Standards govern service procedures, quality, terms and conditions, statistical survey conduction, freight forwarder qualifications and assessment criteria. Standards for manifest and documentation, documentation coding approach, information and data exchange and risk assessment for China forwarders are being drafted and will be announced soon. Stay tuned for implementation . . . Air France-KLM said November cargo traffic tanked dropping 13.2 percent year-on-year, with capacity down by 7.5 percent. Load factor fell by 4.3 points to 67.1 percent . . . The airline “bailout boogie” continues in China with Tianjin city government giving 200 million Yuan ($29 million) to Grand China Express Airlines Co Ltd, a unit of Hainan Airlines Group (HNA), to keep the carrier afloat amidst heavy losses. HNA is also in talks with the Yunnan provincial government for a fund flow into another of its units - Lucky Air. Lucky for Lucky that it is a joint venture between HNA and the Yunnan government. Just last month China Southern Airlines, Air China and China Eastern won approval from Government of China for a collective 3 billion Yuan bailout. Elsewhere earlier this week Shanghai Airlines said that its shareholders and the Shanghai Government had not agreed on a bailout as reported in a local newspaper . . .

DHL Delivers Christmas

    DHL may have bought the farm with an ill-fated attempt to crack the USA market but Big Yellow isn’t scotching Christmas, as once again it delivers for U.S. troops serving in the Middle East with Christmas trees moved gratis for the U.S. Army Reserve 77th Regional Readiness Command and local New York businesses.
    The trees are enroute as you read this from New York in shipments that also include menorahs, ornaments and lights so that whatever the celebration, American servicemen and women stationed overseas during the holiday season get a little lift from home.
    The DHL Christmas Trees for Troops initiative was launched in December 2004 after local businessman Jim Adelis overheard a woman at Dee's Nursery near JFK inquiring about how to ship a Christmas tree to her son in Iraq.
    Adelis, whose son was stationed in Iraq at the time, was inspired to reach out to DHL and the local community to deliver more than just a single tree.
    "We at DHL are once again honored to continue the tradition of bringing the holiday spirit to our troops in Iraq," said John Cameron, Executive Vice President of Operations, DHL.