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   Vol. 24  No. 12

Tuesday March 4, 2025

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Ann Crampton, Richard Garcia, Kendra Tanner, David King, Brandon Fried, Amanda Barlow, Geoffrey Arend, Jake Fisher, Bob Imbriani, Aaron Ambrite, Alan White and Warren Jones.

   Somebody said there was an announcement.
   In a way I felt a disquieting expectation for something completely unexpected.
   But I was the news, in fact, not the President!
     In Dallas on Monday, we learned we had been selected to receive The Jim Foster Award for 2025.
     Sabiha and I were surprised and quite taken aback to be singled out at Air Cargo 2025 Conference in Dallas, Texas, when Brandon Fried presented The Jim Foster Award as part of the Opening Day Program.
     “The Jim Foster Award is named after the founder of the Airforwarders Association and honors individuals who have made a significant contribution to the value of our industry, organization, and membership,” that’s how it is pronounced.
    Now having had a bit of time to digest this unexpected attention with humility and thanks as we celebrate 50 years of covering the air cargo story, here are some thoughts and comment, as I stumbled through March 3 here in Dallas.
    So here we are, pictured in the middle of the Airforwarders Association Board members clutching the AfA award!
    This is an item that I need to handle with care.
    It is also very beautiful and classy.
     “The Jim Foster Memorial Award is the highest honor Airforwarders Association can bestow,” said AfA Executive Director Brandon Fried.
    “Every year we ask our members to nominate and vote for a recipient of this award, named after our founding Executive Director.
   “This is an award that stands for excellence,” Brandon said.
    “It is an honor to present Geoffrey with the Jim Foster award, that means so much to our industry – after 50 years of front-line reporting on our sector, Geoffrey is a well-deserved winner.”
    When it comes to people who deserve awards and thanks from all of us, we think of Brandon Fried who has served selflessly for the past two decades, moving from the exalted halls of government in Washington to the smallest hamlets, offering air cargo people a leg up from his organizational presence and persistence; Glyn Hughes who retired from a distinguished career as IATA Head of Cargo, to once again picking up his sword out of retirement, today serving at TIACA Director General, are people amongst us that work for the betterment of air cargo.
     Add Mike White, former President of CNS as an individual who makes a difference relentlessly advancing the air cargo form in public forums around the world.
     I can never forget the pictures we published of Donna Mullins, as COVID fear and restrictions raged, when everything else aside, she was out on the truck lines in the cargo area at ATL handing out little white plastic bags of warm food from a local chicken restauran to cargo drivers otherwise holed up inside their lorries.
     The reality is that there are legions of air cargo people, who every day are doing great things for their customers and each other.
     We just got lucky to be able to share these chronicles over the years.
    The affirmation is this very thoughtful honorarium and makes us think that occasionally we got the stories straight.
     With me, every step of the way, is and always has been my wife Sabiha. She gets as much credit as I, for sure. I know that I would not be here, or able to continue, without her.
    Grateful, thanks to our branding partners, as we deepen our efforts to use imagination and passion in delivering their unique messages.
     Here in Texas after the roundup, I am told, the local saloons would fill up with all types of characters.
     Things could get a bit rowdy, but the rule was always, “whatever happens, don’t shoot the piano player.”
     Am eternally grateful that after 50 years publishing thousands of narratives, so far no one has decided to shoot the messenger . . .
     But moving forward, am taking nothing for granted!
     I will cherish this day for the rest of my life.
     Thanks once again for this wonderful honor.
     Keep ‘em flying, air cargo.
GDA 


Elzbieta Kizer, Eric Mathieu, Sam Mendenhall, Roger Samways, Brian Hodges, EJ Sawlis, Indy Bolina, Andres Romero Sanchez, Jorge Oquendo, Tim Paliganoff
 
     Roger Samways, who celebrates 27 years at American Airlines Cargo in 2025, no doubt can easily list a hundred things he did recently, but – ever the understated executive – not only does he own up when things go wrong, but also stands up and credits his team for the cargo division’s continued success.  Ask Roger Samways, the easy breezy likeable and hard-working long time all pro VP Commercial, American Airlines Cargo, what is most important in being a leader, his answer is instant and refreshing: “Humor!”
     Roger says: “You must be able to laugh and keep a positive outlook during challenging times. Plus, a great joke always helps lighten the mood. Additionally, I think humility and servant-leadership are attributes of great leaders. There’s the adage that ‘people always remember how you made them feel,’ and I think leaders have a responsibility for the impression they leave on those who look up to them.”
     These are answers that strike a chord, in their apparent restraint. Obviously we want to know more, so we ask questions. 

FT:  What is your top priority?
RS:  My top priority is always serving our customers as best we can! But really, all our goals for the year are somehow aligned to serving our customers – whether it’s maximizing the use of our network to provide them with more options to connect freight around the world, enhancing our product suite, or launching more digital connections, our customers will remain at the forefront of all we do.

FT:  How has the year gone so far for American Cargo? Are you on track meeting goals as planned?
RS:  It’s been a good start to the year so far and we are pleased with the momentum we brought with us into 2025 after a really solid 2024, and a particularly strong second half of the year. One of the big factors that drove our business activity in 2024 and will continue to be a priority in 2025 is digitization. We’ve been talking about the importance of digitization for several years now, and it remains at the forefront as we continue to enhance our business with the implementation of new tools and capabilities that better serve our customers and we are on track to deliver more enhancements later this year.
    
Operational efficiency coincides with the digital experiences we provide our customers as well. In 2024, we focused on developing new monitoring and reporting practices that help us predict and plan for possible challenges along the shipment journey. Using resources including new dashboards, machine learning to help us more accurately forecast capacity, AI to help predict which shipments are most likely to experience a service failure and increased scanning capabilities have enabled us to provide an increasingly seamless experience for our customers operationally, and we will continue to invest in those tools in 2025.

FT:  What impact with the ever-changing U.S. landscape? Challenges? Not knowing what to expect and how do you plan long term?
RS:  We started the year anticipating a pretty solid demand environment, coupled with reasonably consistent supply, albeit with a few questions related to the potential of impending tariffs. Two months in, things have changed a little. The on/off tariffs coupled with proposed changes to the de minimis rule have raised questions related to the demand outlook, which may end up having a significant impact upon supply (how capacity is deployed within the market). Additionally, we are seeing an evolving geo-political landscape including the U.S. perusing a new foreign policy with the change in administration.
    
Thanks to 2020, as an industry we’ve learned how to be agile and to adapt to whatever comes our way. Our long-term plans are now always backed by nimble tools and resources to pivot business plans as needed and we simply see 2025 as another opportunity to demonstrate this!

 Robert CrandallFT:  What regions are growing? Any surprise developments?
RS:  Currently, we continue to see strong demand in both directions on the transatlantic, and on our Latin American North and South bound routes. Asia has started to recover after the Chinese New Year, and we are paying close attention to any further developments in the region, as changes within the e-commerce sector may results in capacity being repositioned.
    
Exports from the U.S. are showing an improvement vs. last year and we are looking to further leverage our capacity as our network grows over the coming months, especially in CLT and PHL. I wouldn’t say that the demand environment has been surprising so far, but we are watching the evolving geo-political and macro-economic environments very closely and will be ready to respond to any potential change in the supply/demand environment.

FT:  What is American Airlines doing differently in 2025 with respect to air cargo security and sustainability?
RS:  Sustainability continues to be a key area of focus for American Airlines. As an airline, we have milestones in place to guide us toward our goal of net-zero emissions in 2050, which include utilizing sustainable aviation fuel, or SAF, to help offset CO2 emissions, testing solutions for contrail avoidance, and improving environmental sustainability across our operations. We’ve also made investments in newer, more fuel-efficient aircraft – in fact, we have the largest and youngest fleet among the U.S. carriers.
    
Specific to Cargo, we are really proud of our growing relationships with BioNatur Plastics. We utilize their bio-degradable plastic products at most of our U.S. hubs and several international locations. BioNatur plastic biodegrades in normal landfill conditions in 8-12 years and, by using this product, we were able to reduce our long-term plastic waste in 2024 by the equivalent of 12.6 million water bottles.

Roger Samways, John Samways, Chris Samways, Dylan Samways, Phoebe Samways, Lucy Samways

FT:  What is your proudest achievement at American Cargo?
RS:  We have spoken about this a lot over the last few years, but the way that the team pulled together during COVID was incredible and that has remained an important part of our culture ever since. From the support that they provided to one another, to the way that we rapidly worked with departments across the airline to stand up our Cargo Only flights, it was a really challenging, rewarding and humbling experience. I’m proud of what we accomplished in a time of crisis, and also how that has made us a stronger team in the years that followed.

FT:  You have undoubtedly made promises to customers that do business with AA Cargo. What have been kept? Any that you are still working on?
RS:  We always strive to deliver on our promises at American, and I feel really good about how we’ve performed in that area! Our commitments center around the fact that we are always looking for ways to improve. This includes delivering product enhancements, making it easier to do business with us by expanding our digital booking channels, and implementing operational efficiencies that enable us to respond faster to challenges that may arise during the shipment journey. We have made significant strides in all these areas, but we are also continuously working to deliver further improvement.

FT:  If you had, say, five minutes to address each person at Dallas what would you say?
RS:  It would have to be something short because there are a lot of people here! I think it’s generally more insightful to ask questions rather than speaking, so I’d ask people “What’s the one thing that American could do that would most help your business?” and see where the conversation headed for the next four and a half minutes!

FT:  What would you like to see added to the agenda at cargo trade shows in 2025?
RS:  I think these industry events and trade shows are a great way to connect with industry partners – there’s just never enough time to talk with everyone! Each event is different in its own way, but in general I like to see an agenda which contains up-to-date, meaningful topics (i.e. discussion around tariffs and the impending de minimis change would be great examples today) and I’m always interested in hearing economists give macro-economic overviews – especially as the environment is subject to rapid change. It’s also important to balance the desire to serve compelling content with allowing sufficient time for people to meet and network. A huge part of the value proposition for conferences is the opportunity that they provide for face-to-face meetings with partners, vendors and customers.
GDA/MLS



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De Minimis In Detail



Nilu Quraeshi

Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     Today is Shrove (Fat) Tuesday Mardi
Gras Day, March 4, 2025.
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     Celebrated in New Orleans since 1699,
and in cities all over America including
Dallas, Parades and Parties, on this last
big blast (formerly a day of penance)
before Ash Wednesday, begins in the
Christian calendar, and incudes 40 days
of Lent, ending on Easter Sunday April
20, 2025.
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     Pictured here is our cousin-in-law Nilu Quraeshi celebrating Mard Gras
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     For us, Fat Tuesday is always about the
great music and the greatest Louis
Armstrong, who brightened up our lives
whilst we attended Newtown High School in Corona, Queens, New York.
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     Today Louis’ former home at 34-49 107th Street Corona is a museum, but occasionally during the 1950s he could be observed relaxing on the stoop talking to the neighbors.
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     They named the airport in New Orleans after Louis Armstrong and as they played Super Bowl there last month we thought of one song he sang and featured his trumpet.
Fat Tuesday Knows What It Means
     This one is always on our record player at home during Mardis Gras.



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Vol. 24 No. 9
Jan Krems-Attributes Of A Great Leader
Southwest's Devereaux Retires
Chuckles for February 27, 2025
Mikey Of The North
Powering Up Amar More
Cameron Roberts On de minimis
FT030225
Vol. 24 No. 10
Airportz A Poppin' At AirCargo 2025

FT030325
Vol. 24 No. 11
Delta In The Value
Chuckles for March 3
Mentoring Tomorrow's Leaders
The EMO Generations & I


Publisher-Geoffrey Arend • Managing Editor-Flossie Arend • Editor Emeritus-Richard Malkin
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