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A R C H I V E S

NEWS FLASH!

News Flash AlertU.S. Senators Diane Feinstein (D) California and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison will sponsor a bill requiring better security for air cargo, background checks and ID cards and tracking of shipments said the Senators. We like Sen. Feinstein, like her since she took over as Mayor of San Francisco when Harvey Milk who was her boss as Mayor was killed and she rose to that job. But give us a break, Diane. Don’t sound like such a nimrod. “You just have to look at the enormous theft in the air cargo industry to understand that there is a major security threat,” sounds like you don’t even have the first clue about air cargo today. Freight forwarders and any company would be banned by TSA if they do not meet standards incorporated in the Feinstein/Hutchison proposal. These air cargo businesses USA better wake up and cancel that first round of golf at the very next con- ference. This is an industry that has been knocked on its butt by 9/11 and the economy. Now come the law- makers, without a clue, ready to levy any security edict that they can think up against the combination and oth- erwise air cargo business. Wake up air cargo, or there may not be any business to come back to . . . Continental loses $109 million for the fourth quarter, says it will lose this year in the first quarter and probably all of 2003 will be in the red. Good news? Cargo revenue jumped 36% in fourth quarter of 2002. Too bad cargo is less than 8% of CO’s rev- enue stream. Delta loses $221 mil- lion for the same period but analysts say those numbers are good or at least better than they thought the boys from ATL would achieve. Wonder what ever happened to SkyTeam? Big kick off in Atlanta with the entire airline (Delta, Korean, Air France Princes in attendance in 2001, then nary a word since. We heard that they were having some interface problems with their computers or something. But the silence makes you wonder. Sev- eral calls to Bernard Frattini (AF) part of the Sky Team management in Atlanta have gone unanswered . . .Wolf Dietrich Von Helldorff who is chairman of the German Freight Forwarders stood up with Lufthansa Cargo Board Member and boss Dr. Andrea Otto in front of a room full of LH Cargo executives and more than 100 freight forwarders in Frankfurt this

Dr. Otto
past Wednesday (1/15) and both agreed while 2002 was ‘stagnant’, 2003 at least for European air cargo looks better. Air cargo could be entering a new era of cooperation in Germany as well. Everybody is up in arms about a proposal that night flights be shut down at FRA. “It would spell the end of air cargo Germany,” said one executive. “We will all have to work much closer together on several issues that confront air cargo growth,” Herr’s Helldorff and Otto concurred. The professional air cargo viewpoint for example on security regulations and edicts will need to be agreed upon and put forward to regulators. “Security will require heavy investment. But total air cargo security is the end all, and be all, of our future.” . . .