20th ANNIVERSARY SOUVENIR
Volume 1 Issue 1
2 July 2018
Still on trend
20 years of heavyweight
Legacy IT to AI
Airfreight’s who’s who
Fallen flags
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Looking back, Looking forward IN THE LAST 20 years, there have been many events that have impacted the air cargo industry. E-Commerce has changed the way we shop, and is, and has been, a catalyst for change in airfreight because of the requirements to be fast to market. Some products have become a lot smaller, impacting the total weight being transported. However, this also resulted in a higher value density. A ULD with computers or TV screens has a much lower value density than a ULD with smart phones or tablets. Trade lanes somehow have shifted as well. During the last two decades China has emerged as the factory for the rest of the world making use of relative low labour costs. During this period, hundreds of millions of Chinese have been lifted out of poverty, creating more consumption as well. As a result, China’s share of global airfreight has been increasing. Luckily, Boeing and Airbus have been able to manufacture more fuel-efficient aircraft. This cost advantage has been passed on completely to the customers. Unfortunately, there were also
Twenty years ago, there were two American, four European and four Asian, though no Chinese airlines in the top 10. Last year, there were no American, six Asian, of which there are Chinese, two Middle Eastern and two European airlines in the top 10. The only carriers who have been part of the top 10 air cargo carriers for the last 20 years are Lufthansa, Korean Air, Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. other events that have impacted our industry negatively. The horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, changed the airline industry, especially regarding security measures. The price fixing allegations and fines in 2006 had not only a big cost, but also a personal impact for certain individuals. The biggest financial impact was the crisis in 2008, which lingered on longer than any other crisis causing over-capacity for many years. Unfortunately, there has been not enough progress made in digitisation. The air cargo industry is slow to change and is still quite conservative. There has been a shift in the top 10 global air cargo carriers.
Airfreight’s new horizon Technology will change the next 20 years. There will be driverless trucks and pilotless aircraft, resulting in fewer accidents but also in better asset utilisation at lower cost. In the next couple of years, there will be a shortage of drivers and pilots in many countries. If growth continues, capacity might not catch up sufficiently, resulting in higher yields. The air cargo industry finally will be paper-less and fully digital. Forwarders will still play an important role to unburden the shippers of their logistics needs. However, digital freight exchange
l LOOK BACK TO 1998 P2 l DIGITISATION P4
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platforms and control towers based on smart algorithms will play a bigger role. The top 10 cargo airlines in 20 years will certainly be different. Maybe Africa and Latin America carriers will have a place in the top 10. From a demographic point of view these regions will also grow faster than others. Integrators will continue to grow but companies like Amazon and Alibaba will play a bigger role in the air cargo supply chain and potentially become airlines themselves. Despite some nationalistic sentiments in certain countries, globalisation will continue to drive trade and global wealth. There will be at least two crises in the next 20 years, which will have an impact on supply and demand. Therefore, it is so important to invest counter cyclical. It is in our human nature to be positive and always think that we will soon be out of a crisis and never think of a crisis when times are good. This somehow self-fulfilling prophecy will continue to drive investments, consumption and economic growth.
Sebastiaan Scholte TIACA Chairman
Happy birthday to us!
THE 20th ANNIVERSARY of ACW was celebrated at the recent Air Cargo Week World Cargo Awards in Shanghai with the ceremonial cutting of a delicious birthday cake especially decorated with the 20th Anniversary logo. Azura International staff at the glittering event went on the stage at the invitation of Azura International chairman William Carr to help cut the cake. Before inviting staff to the stage, Carr had delivered a stirring address, highlighting the two decades of work that had gone into producing the world’s only global, weekly airfreight newspaper. The delicious confection had been ordered from a local confectioner and was delivered to the stage before the main event of the evening.
l AMERIJET: STAYING AHEAD P7 l MYSTERY OF FLIGHT 111 P16 l
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Look back to 1998
Readers of the first issue of Air Cargo Week, numbered Volume 1, Issue 1 and dated May 1. 1998, were holding a newspaper that would quickly secure its place at the heart of air freight media. TWO DECADES AGO, what gripped the readers of the launch issue of ACW was the machinations behind the Delta Air Lines and Swisscargo alliance, the latest between European and American carriers in the newspaper’s lead story. The cargo functions of the two carriers would operate as a single network, with sales staff of both airlines used in cities where both airlines had a presence and offering joint pricing. Walter ‘Buddy’ Doll, senior vice president of cargo for Delta said: “The extensive cargo network offers shippers an enhanced cargo product.” However, the first many Delta GSAs in Europe knew about it was a “faxed” copy of a Swissair Logistics newsletter announcing the move. GSAs immediately communicated their horror at the move, especially as many had invested in staff and locations to support Delta Air Lines and Swisscargo sales. The other story was about TNT launching a new corporate identity and spending millions – in those pre-euro days – of Dutch guilders on a new hub in Belgium. The 48-page first issue carried a range of articles including news, traffic analysis, cargo trends, a history slot on the Bristol Britannia freighter, a shippers’ forum, North American report, stocks and shares column and a back page, Hazardous Cargo, which threatened to be a “purveyor of unsubstantiated scandal, gossip and rumour for the global air cargo industry.” The page represented the first appearance of Airway Bill.
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He has recently re-appeared in the newspaper, invited back by current editor James Graham, who was also a journalist on the very first issue of ACW.
Air Cargo Forum ‘98 ACW was launched in the May of 1998 to be available at the 19th International Air Cargo Forum, held in Paris that year. Senior industry officials asked by Air Cargo Week to spell out what they saw as the major issues facing airfreight in the late 1990s pointed to immediate problems. The spotlight was “very much on Asia and the fall-out from currency and general economic upheaval in that region.” Observers hoped that Asia’s “difficulties will cause a relatively short-term blip on air cargo rather than a sustained downturn.” One of the major issues being debated was the future shape of “intra-industry” relationships. “In the new millennium, people will be more concerned with the total supply chain – and that means there will have to be closer relationships between all those involved,” said Kevin Hatton, managing director of BA World Cargo. The issue of industry relationships had been pushed centre stage as a growing number of leading carriers had indicated intentions to develop closer ties with shippers, generating fears among some forwarders that they could be squeezed out of the picture.
2 July 2018
ACW 20 years in numbers
A none-too-serious look at 20 years of publishing ACW
4 people associated with the debut issue in May 1998 still current members of staff
5 continents on which ACW is read 7 editors have steered the newspaper – Ian
Martin Jones was the longest serving editor at 13 years
24 pages in a typical issue 48 pages in the May 1998 launch issue 175 countries in which ACW is read 240 months of publication since launch 1000 issues since September, 1998 1998 The year in which ACW was
launched
2008 ACW’s 10th anniversary
celebrations
2013 ACW’s 15th anniversary
celebrations
24,000 news and feature pages 75,000 news and feature stories
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Why
can’t we digitise? Peter MacSwiney at ASM bemoans the lack of advance in IT over the last two decades MY PREVAILING MEMORY of the late 90’s has to be… air cargo working groups focused on, you’ve guessed it, increasing the take up of FWB (Freight Way Bill). The names of some of these groups have been forgotten over time but I remember two in particular. The first was driven by Cathay Pacific and wanted to actually deliver something rather than just be another talking shop. Maybe FWB was, even in those days, on the ‘too difficult pile’. I remember Colin Cook, the IT director of AEI, stating that they sent 100 per cent FWB but, at any one time only 80 per cent got through. When they corrected the problem a different 20 per cent failed. The IT director of Circle Airfreight said that he had 37 different edits for the same FWB version
due to differing carrier interpretations of the spec.
Bar code label arrives Maybe we gave up on the FWB but we did achieve the take up of the IATA 606 bar code label which ASM rolled out in our World Agent product. Mind you, talking to some of the TSOs today it seems that a significant number of forwarders don’t bother to label their freight in any way, but still I think that was really the only significant real achievement in the last 20 years. The other working group was FACIT and although I can remember the name I cannot recall what the acronym stood for. This was driven by British Airways at
London Heathrow and included Air France, Lufthansa, and KLM all of whom were asking the time-honoured question: how can we get the forwarders to send us more FWBs in order for us to save $15 keying them in? “Simple,” was our reply; “incentivise them!” “Ah no we aren’t going to do that!” “Well, in that case,” was my reply, “you aren’t going to get them to do it.” Twenty years later, that’s still more true than not. The latest IATA figures are claiming 50ish per cent take-up of eAWB worldwide. In the meantime, the airlines have done their absolute best to pass the problem on to anyone who will catch the hot potato other than themselves. Carriers still have the arrogance to threaten to charge forwarders who don’t send the FWB. Which, by the way is an archaic out-dated message standard unique to airlines.
Is this the answer? FACIT was really only getting into its stride when along came Cargo 2000, then Cargo iQ. Surely this was the answer. Can we affiliate ourselves to this program we asked? No, was the reply - we only want to sign up major international corporates that we can charge tens of thousands of dollars a year to join an exclusive club, presumably designed to give a commercial advantage. We concluded that we weren’t going to waste our time trying to help an organisation that wasn’t prepared to work with us. FACIT disbanded and amazingly the take up of FWB pretty much stayed where it was. So fast forward to today and what has changed? From our experience, Colin Cook’s 80 per cent
receive rate is still better than most people get today and he did seem to know whether his messages got through or not. We only see responses from around 50 per cent of the FWBs sent out by Sequoia. These can be acceptance or rejection messages but the most common response is; absolutely nothing, who knows, or cares where that message has gone?
Three-month project At ASM we recently embarked on a trial with one of our users, monitoring 70,000 Air Waybills (AWBs) to see where the FWB messages go, what responses come back, and why some of them fail. After committing considerable resources on the project for three months, we reached the conclusion that the business rules for carrier and Customs can be different and it is possible that different message VANs have different individual rules. Well done, to IATA and the airlines! In a world where technology is moving at a truly staggering pace you have managed to stop the clock. The next offering which will revolutionise the industry is the One Record? Difficult to see how we can get from where we are to where they want to be. I suspect that companies that see an advantage in this will create peer-to-peer messages with their carriers of choice. We will end up with hundreds of slightly different messages, albeit XML. Hmm wait a minute, not much change there from 1998 or where Cargo iQ was pushing the industry towards. Wake up and smell the coffee guys! There are technologies out there which will fundamentally change the way we do business, Brexit will be a significant influence in this as seamless data exchange will be the only viable way to process the number of items that will need to be reported in some shape or form. If you don’t embrace technology someone else will. Join the rest of our Sequoia users in the 21st century today!
Agency Sector Management (UK) Ltd ASM), is the leading software provider to the UK Customs clearance and freight
forwarding industries.
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Still on trend after 20 years IMAGINE A BUSINESS world where there is no email, no PCs or computerised records and only two land lines that serve a bustling GSA’s office on the verge of global expansion. This is a place where staff have “heard about” the internet but have no access to it at work. Paperwork is filled in manually and clients settle accounts with cheques that must be taken to the bank daily. That was the world of Air Logistics Group chief operating officer, Stephen Dawkins 20 years ago. He recalls: “We had no email in 1998. We relied on telex. There was no Internet at work but staff had heard about it.” The year of Air Cargo Week’s launch was also memorable for Dawkins for another reason: he picked up The Daily Telegraph Young Business award.
Millennials Considering that his first cell phone was a great brick of a Motorola, Dawkins has adapted very well to a world of disruptors, AI and digitalisation. In one field, he could mot be more different than the young man who posed so proudly in 1998 for the newspaper award. Considering the hirings of the 21st century, Dawkins is comfortable that Air Logistics Group is perfectly on trend.
He says: “We have adapted the way our office functions to take account of how Millennials are. They do have a different work/life balance to when I started out.” He says that his company accommodates the use of social media, such as Facebook, in the office as he accepts this is the modern way. Back in the day, Dawkins would be very conscious of the cost of long-distance telephone calls – from a landline naturally in an office with only two telephone lines into the company. Now, every employee is contactable or can make telephone calls to any place on the planet through a cell phone in their pocket.
It can manifest itself in restlessness in younger staff, unwilling to consider a long-term career and more likely to be mobile between jobs. This is where Dawkins’ understanding of how hirings have changed in 20 years serves the company well. Founded just four years before Air Cargo Week launched, the GSA was acquired in 2006 by World Freight Company which has invested substantial funds to ensure the group remains a leading cargo sales and service provider.
Concentration gone In the 20 years since ACW’s launch, the speeding up of telecommunications has astounded Dawkins like many in the airfreight industry. Information now flows around the globe in an instant it seems. There is, however, a downside he says: “Within a generation, we have gone from telexes and letters to next day. For this modern generation, they want instant data, which is required straightaway. Next day is no longer good enough. “This has come at the cost of concentration. This is now very much less.”
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Amerijet: staying ahead of the
curve for two decades The gender question is not the only matter to have changed in the United States in the last 20 years. Technology has changed the business world. It has enabled companies to be more innovative, made information more reliable, as well as more accessible. The growth of e-commerce has been a big part of how the air cargo business has changed, considers Rollins. “There has been and will always be a need for airfreight. Economies around the world will always ebb and flow,” says Rollins.
Hiring now PLUS CA CHANGE, plus c’est la même chose, or the more things change, the more they stay the same. The old French motto might have been coined for all-cargo carrier Amerijet. In 1998, the Miami-based carrier had a combination of 20 international and domestic offices that moved freight through its network in the US, Mexico, Central and South America and the Caribbean. Half the carrier’s fleet was dedicated to scheduled service and the other half was dedicated to longterm contract services within the US. The part of their business that has stayed the same is what they are flying, 20 years on. “The products we ship today are the same as what we shipped 20 years ago,” says Pamela Rollins, Amerijet’s Sr. Vice President of Business Development. “We have always been an all cargo carrier, shipping hazardous materials, perishables, live animals, general cargo, project cargo, human remains and pharmaceutical products. That has not changed.” The part of their business that has changed is what they are flying, 20 years on. She says: “What has changed is the pharmaceutical industry. Today we transport a lot of biotech products, vaccines and other injectables using different standards. Amerijet was the first US all-cargo airline to earn IATA’s CEIV-Pharma certification. As an airline we play a large part in the pharmaceutical supply chains or the completion of the certification reinforces Amerijet’s promise to exceed the high standards set by the pharmaceutical industry. “We also have more direct shipper customers and we offer more value added services, such as pickup and delivery, customs brokerage, insurance, and so on.”
“We find that the new generation approaches solutions differently, but they do bring in new skills in technology and new media,” says Rollins.
“We have adapted well and have always embraced technology. For the past several years we have done electronic data interfacing (EDI) with many of our customers direct or through the Descartes or CHAMP platform and we have positioned the company for the implementation of the eAWB initiative.” A number of Amerijet’s competitors have disappeared in the last 20 years, such as Arrow Air. How has Amerijet survived? “A common vision shared throughout the organisation with an unwavering focus on our customers, on our common carriage business and the continued seeking of new business opportunities. Continuity in our business plan with the ability to adapt to changes in our industry, our experienced employees as well as our fleet type have all been part of our recipe for success,” says Rollins.
Web presence Back in the day, or at least 1998, websites were little more than electronic brochures. “We had a website that was informational,” recalls Rollins. “Today, we have a complete customer portal which allows customers to book, pay and track all their shipments, as well as access AWBs and other documentation on our website.” “We were early adopters of email and we still use faxing when appropriate. Our airline did use SITA communications in 1998.” That year, the company was 24 years old, having been founded by David Bassett, who was CEO and would remain in place until retirement in July 2016. Around eight per cent of the company’s current staff were employed by them in 1998. “We had a fleet of 12 727 aircraft in 1998,” says Rollins. “9/11 came with a lot of security changes. Some of these changes have also resulted in better transparency and shipment tracking.”
The distaff side One of the hot topics that has developed in the 20 years since Air Cargo Week’s launch has been the presence, or otherwise, of women in airfreight. Rollins says: “Female employees have always played a major part in our organisation. They are vice presidents and managers in all areas including technology, sales, marketing, administration, operations and many other aspects of our business.”
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Two
decades of heavyweight adventures Michael Goodisman, business development director, Antonov Airlines ANTONOV AIRLINES OFFERED the first AN-124-100 freighter for charter in 1989 enabling the commercial air cargo community to fly even larger and heavier pieces. By 1998, and the launch of ACW, the market had grown with over twenty AN-124100s competing through a number of specialist operators. By this time, a few of the smaller operators had ceased operations, and the more familiar names of today emerged to carry this capability forward.
The journey of the next 20 years would partly be controlled by the operators. For example, loading equipment designs improved to allow more flexibility in the types, weights, and heights of cargoes that could be loaded. Engine reliability was improved to keep each airframe flying for longer between maintenance, and a series of life extension programmes ensured that the airframes remained present in this market. Avionics were constantly improved to keep
pace with the ever more demanding air traffic rules and regulations.
Belly Cargo Space However, there were also factors beyond the operators’ control that drove them to adapt. For example, the worldwide growth of passenger aircraft with large belly cargo space changed the landscape. The practice of carrying project cargo into the Far East and then returning the aircraft home with general cargo inevitably slowed and eventually stopped as competing scheduled carriers lowered their kilo-rates beyond the reach of project cargo aircraft.
Facing the future Antonov Airlines is well positioned to face the future, not least thanks to its 20-year life extension programme across its AN-124 and AN-225 fleet. A modernisation programme is well underway providing 150-tonne payload AN-124 airframes and other benefits, and it has ensured a robust component supply chain remains in place. The emergence of e-commerce and longerrange narrow bodied passenger aircraft with smaller belly space are helping to rebalance air cargo demand and supply. New cargo transportation technologies are emerging along with more creative ways to bring alternative strategic airlift capacity into the commercial market.
“challenges Dear James, Just a note to wish you and emerged yo ur whole team at ACW a very Happy 20th Annive rsar y. which I remember the day Nor man Bamford and Ian Martin reduced launched the weekly backJoinnes 1998 and later ventured with project the Air Cargo show as an adjunct to the biennial Munich cargo (and later China) Interm odal shows and have been a levels� reader since then. regular Further challenges emerged which reduced project cargo levels, chiefly the recession and much-reduced oil prices, both of which curtailed project cargo and general cargo investments worldwide. During much of this period, political events drove an increase in demand from the defence sector and so the AN-124s continued to fly. In fact, the aerospace sector also provided some large projects requiring multiple flights.
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The publication has co me a long way and here is lo oking forward to the next 20 years...
Best regards, Ram Menen Aviation and air cargo executive (Rtd ) Air Cargo Week 26/06/2018 11:06
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The two-decade move from legacy IT to AI Simon Elmore, Chief Operating Officer, Hermes Logistics Technologies THE PAST 20 YEARS of air cargo handling have witnessed many changes and unfortunately it seems that not all of them can be seen as positive. In many stations there has been a noticeable decline in the overall quality of service delivery partly due to the loss of talent to other industries and also due to less investment in key areas of recruitment, training and process evolution. As a solutions provider to the industry we have a strong focus on simplifying and clarifying systems and processes due to the fact that a great deal of the inherent, valuable industry knowledge and skill has been lost over the years. Technology is slowly (but surely) driving innovation and new players, like Amazon, are moving into the airline and ground
handling business. This will disrupt the traditional markets immensely and push even the most conservative service providers to modernise their operations.
Legacy IT In the past, the cargo ground handling market had many more airline self-handling warehouses, usually controlled by legacy IT systems that concentrated on single airline operations with a focus on bookings and SITA messaging. This slowly changed when airlines started to outsource their cargo ground handling work to transit shed operators (TSOs), cargo terminal operators (CTOs) and cargo ground handling agents (GHAs). With the change in focus came the need for TSOs, CTOs and GHAs to consolidate and streamline their own operations and data in order to successfully surpass SLAs in a world of very tight profit margins, low quality messaging and high expectations. TSOs, CTOs, and GHAs thus started to invest in Cargo Management Systems (CMS) that were designed specifically for them to process the cargo of contracted airlines at specific locations. Some of these new systems gave the TSOs, CTOs and GHAs the ability to have a single overriding SOP for a network of warehouses and locations, but with the flexibility and business rules to control local customer and regional variations.
Coming years In the short term, TSOs, CTOs and GHAs will continue to invest in CMS technology, but that can often be difficult in an industry where other supply chain stakeholders take the lead and/or have a stronger voice. In addition to and in conjunction with important ongoing initiatives like e-AWB and e-Pouch, it is important that the technology suppliers come to the market with deep industry experience and pre-defined, value-obvious solutions.
“In the long term, robotics and AI will allow for the dreams of auto-acceptance, auto-move, auto-build and auto-deliver” In the coming years, CMS will need to work with a less able, lower paid, and smaller resource pool and thus process steering, machine learning and automation will continue to disrupt traditional cargo handling operations. The use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons to automatically track temperature, impact, moisture, and location will become the norm. Warehouse static, physical elements such as doors, rack locations, breakdown buffers and build pits will all interact through IoT with dynamic elements such as pieces, pallets, containers, trollies and dollies to give airline customers, as well as their customers the benefit of more accurate realtime product journey information from shipper to consignee. Resource Management Systems will provide staff skills and roles data to allow CMS to make intelligent decisions on the next best task for a specific individual based on his/her location and ability, and provide information to the user in a mobile social media-like feed, or through visual flags as part of wearable tech. In the long term, robotics and AI will allow for the dreams of “auto-acceptance”, “auto-move”, “auto-build”, and “auto-deliver” to be a reality with a fully functioning digital warehouse, but until then the air cargo industry will continue to take small steps into the new world.
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Air Cargo’s who’s who for 21 years THE INTERNATIONAL AIR Cargo Association (TIACA) Hall of Fame was in its infancy when ACW was launched in 1998. Created just the year before, the Hall of Fame has recognised the contributions and efforts of airfreight’s most influential business leaders. It has also chartered the changing nature of the business from the late 1990s to the second decade of the 21st century. Early recipients had had experience of World War II and the Berlin Airlift, then just fifty years in the past, yet were still making a contribution to the industry. A later recipient had experience in the more modern warfare of Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of the more recent inductees were part of the mergers in the industry the following decade. The most recent winner, air cargo veteran Desmond ‘Des’ Vertannes, an acknowledged leader known for initiating change and innovation, shows how far the industry has come from the 1940s beginnings of the modern, post-war era. Vertannes has fostered and led industry collaboration in
1998 Michael A. Chowdry He was chairman, CEO and president and founder of Atlas Air. An early deal saw him purchase seven 727s from Frontier Airlines and sell them to Flying Tigers. George Batchelor He owned several airlines including Arrow Air and played a major role in establishing Miami as one of the leading air cargo centres of the world. Joseph N. Berg After college, Berg began working with Chester Mayer, the founder of AEI. Gerhard Fischer After more than 34 years at Panalpina, he ended up as chairman of the board. 1999 Walter H Johnson He was a founding member of the first airline cargo department in the United States. USAF Major General William H Tunner He was honoured for developing the Air Transport Command’s famous Hump operation over the Himalayas to China and being in command of the Berlin airlift. Sir Peter Abeles Hungarian-born Abeles arrived in Australia as an immigrant. As chairman and CEO, he grew TNT from modest beginnings to a billion-dollar global corporation. RAF Air Commodore R.N. Waite Waite was director, Air Branch of the British Control Commission in Germany during the Berlin Airlift. Garth H Davies Born in the United Kingdom and trained as a journalist, Davies was a TIACA founding member. George Groves The retired president and CEO of Air Cargo, Inc. Bill F. Spohrer President of Challenge Air Cargo and a TIACA founding director, he was also a founding leader in Air Cargo Americas. 2000 Guenter Rohrmann Formerly chairman and CEO of AEI, then vice-chairman of Danzas/AEI following the acquisition of AEI by Deutsche Post. Helmuth F. Klumpp For fifteen years he was Lufthansa’s delegate to the IATA Cargo Tariff Conference and was a major influence in those meetings. Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom, Robert Lynn The trio of men who created DHL. 2002 Siegfried Koehler He was recognised for initiating the first separate all-cargo airline for a scheduled carrier (Lufthansa) and the introduction of the first B747 freighter. Joseph F. Sutter Recognised as one of the pre-eminent aircraft designers of all time and the B747 chief engineer. 2003 Pyotr Balabuyev He was inducted in recognition of his innovative design of Antonov cargo aircraft with the capability of carrying outsized cargo anywhere in the world. Eric Campaña Recognised for years of dedication towards the development of the Chilean air cargo industry and advocacy of open skies and free trade for Chile and the world. 2004 Martin Schröder The former president of the airline Martinair Holland until 1998, the face and conscience of an exemplary company within the industry. 2005 Richard Malkin The world’s first air cargo journalist, author of five books on the subject, including the first textbook and first history.
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e-freight, cargo security, and handling, initiated the Global Air Cargo Advisory Group (GACAG) and pushed to modernise the relationship between airlines and forwarders over a career spanning close to five decades. During his tenure as IATA head of cargo 2010 and 2014, he famously set the industry the challenge of reducing transit times by 48 hours to “ensure customers paying the premium air transport price consistently received a premium service”. Inductee nominations come from TIACA members, industry organisations and the industry press. In the year before ACW’s launch, 11 inductees had been in the inaugural intake. These included John Emery Jr, who led Emery Airfreight from an $80,000,000 company to revenues of $1.2 billion dollars at his retirement; Danish-born Robert Arendal who led Cargolux, generating annual revenue of over $450 million in the 1970s; Fred Smith, the founder of FedEx; and, the late Oleg Antonov, the eponymous aircraft designer, who had died three years before.
Ram Menem Honoured in 2007 Head of Cargo, Emirates Cargo
Alexy Isaikin Honoured in 2016 Airline founder
Des Vertannes Honoured in 2017 Air cargo veteran
Ram Menem Honoured in recognition of his efforts and contributions to the air cargo industry and for his achievements as head of the cargo division of Emirates Airline. 2006 Stanley Hui Hon-Chung He joined Dragonair as Chief Executive Officer in February 1997 and oversaw growth into an award-winning all-cargo airline after tripling its fleet size. Manfred Kiel After an apprentice with Schenker, in 1984 he founded his own company, S.A.T. SeaAir Transport GmbH, in Düsseldorf. Geoff Bridges Between 1983 and 1989 as BA managing director cargo, he was in charge for the six most successful years in British Airways history. He followed this with Air Russia and chairman of Bridges Worldwide. 2007 W.R. Christopher Foyle In 1989 Foyle initiated a partnership with Antonov Design Bureau of the Soviet Union to become the western agent for the charter and lease of An 124s. 2008 Klaus-Michael Kuehne Both executive chairman and majority shareholder of the Kuehne + Nagel Group, with a turnover of CHF 21 billion Swiss francs in 2007. Delford M. Smith The owner and founder of Evergreen International Aviation. 2009 Yang-Ho Cho The chairman and chief executive officer of Korean Air, one of Asia’s largest airlines and the world’s largest commercial airline cargo carrier. Edwin “Ned” Wallace From joining The Flying Tiger Line in 1966 through founding Polar Air Cargo and helping to set up Kalitta Air, Wallace was in air cargo for more than four decades. 2010 Chris Chapman A lifelong “gooner” (fan of Arsenal Football Club), he co-founded the broking company, Chapman Freeborn Airmarketing. 2011 Camille Allaz. Former executive vice president cargo for Air France and one of the industry’s leading historians. 2012 Ray Crane Launched Air Cargo News in 1983. John Raven He spent the last 10 years as TIACA’s representative in Brussels providing industry input and support for the development of the post-9/11 WCO SAFE Framework of Standards. 2013 Philip Wei He moved beyond air cargo to the absolute pinnacle of China Airlines, serving twice as CEO. Bill Boesch In top management at a scheduled allcargo carrier; freight forwarder; the biggest USA combination carrier. In retirement, helped the US military with transport during the Iraq and Afghanistan War. 2014 Jacques Ancher He led KLM Cargo for over 10 years prior to his retirement in 1999. 2015 James ‘Jim’ Jackson An advocate of international standardisation, chairing both the Society of Automotive Engineer’s Air Cargo committee and IATA’s ULD Board. 2016 Alexey Isaikin In 1990, he formed Russia’s first private airline as well as building the world’s largest commercial fleet of An-124 freighters. 2017 Desmond (Des) Vertannes Air cargo veteran, an acknowledged leader known for initiating change and innovation.
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And now the headlines . . .
From the start, Air Cargo Week has captured the weekly activities of the airfreight industry worldwide. Here is a selection of our headlines in the pilot issue of 1 May 1998.
Delta ditches European GSAs as confusion hits Swisscargo alliance TNT unveils new hub; new livery Cargo 2000 process halves transit times Emery picks up Disney contract French cargo lobby group to debut at Paris ACF ‘98 Integrators thrown out by Burmese government On-Line news service complements weekly newspaper New aircraft lift Canada 3000’s tonnage
HKIA T
On 6 July, 1998, H
Like ACW, this makes the gl THE FIRST CARGO flight to land at Hong Kong International Airport (HKIA) at Chek Lao Kok was Pacific East Asia Cargo Q8330 from Manila on Monday, 6 July, 1998. The first departing cargo flight from the new airport was British Airways BA3572 for London Stansted. Cargo was to be mainly handled by neutral handler Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Ltd (HACTL) while Asia Airfreight Terminal handled approximately 20 per cent. The new airport had cost some HK$70.2 billion and replaced Kai Tak, which dated from the 1920s and was famous for its hair-raising flight path over the congested Hong Kong city centre. The year after opening, HKIA was judged to be among the 10 most remarkable construction projects of the 20th Century – in a list that included the Panama Canal, the Channel Tunnel, Egypt’s Aswan High Dam, New York’s Empire State Building and the now destroyed NYC World Trade Centre, the Sydney Opera House, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam in Arizona and the US Defence and Interstate Highway Network. However, what is now rightly regarded as one of the most important global air cargo gateways and transit points, suffered severe teething troubles in its opening weeks. The $1 billion HACTL air cargo facility was hit by major upheavals and computer failures. HKIA imposed a temporary ban on incoming freight. This ban was subsequently extended by over a week while the problems were sorted out. HACTL was forced to transport most of the cargo 19 miles west to its old terminal at Kai Tak Airport, which had closed on the day before HKIA had opened after 73 years. “It is with regret that last night we had to place a moratorium on the handling of all outbound and inbound cargo on all flights up until 23:00 hours on Saturday, 18 July,” announced thenHACTL managing director Anthony Charter to the media. Matters were eventually resolved and by 24 August, all incoming and outgoing air cargo was being handled at HACTL’s new Super Terminal 1.
Compound annual growth HKIA enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of six per cent per annum from 1998 to 2017, with cargo volume increasing from 1.63 million tonnes to 4.94 million tonnes each year. From time-sensitive documents and fresh foods to fashions and electronics, the air cargo that passes through HKIA represents about 40 per cent of Hong Kong’s total external trade value, though in volume air cargo only constitutes 1.6 per cent of the overall cargo trade in 2016. Since 2010, HKIA has been the world’s busiest cargo airport. Together with airmail, cargo throughput at HKIA has exceeded the mark of five million tonnes for the first time in 2017, and is the first airport in the world to have ever handled over five million tonnes of cargo and airmail in a year. Airport Authority Hong Kong (AA) has continued its efforts to ensure that sufficient cargo handling capacity at HKIA meets its operation needs. Currently three cargo terminals operate at
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2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018
A Twenty years young
8, Hong Kong International Airport opened.
he global air cargo player 20 years old this summer.
k
HKIA. All cargo terminal operators are equipped with state-ofthe-art automated cargo handling and management systems to ensure highly efficient, secure and safe cargo operations. Benefiting from its efficient round-the-clock electronic “Air Cargo Clearance System” and its world-leading use of e-freight (ranked world’s first by IATA), HKIA is able to offer high service standards and operation efficiency, such as a very late export cut-off time of three hours before flight departure. HKIA also strictly complies with supply chain security requirement of ICAO and IATA, making it a highly-acclaimed international cargo airport. Temperature-controlled shipments via HKIA, which have seen a strong growth in recent years, is one of HKIA’s strategic priority target segments. The AA and the industry have been striving to enhance the HKIA’s capacity to handle high-value temperature-controlled goods, such as pharmaceuticals, by upgrading hardware and software so as to attract more transhipment of such goods via Hong Kong. HKIA was recognised by IATA as a CEIV Pharma Partner Airport this year, enhancing the handling of temperature-controlled at HKIA. HKIA has an extensive air network with over 220 destination, and over 1,100 daily flights.
Quite a long journey from that day in July, 1998.
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1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008
Fallen flags
READERS OF ACW 20 years ago would have been familiar with a number of all-cargo operators who have disappeared from the airfreight apron. Some have collapsed as businesses, others have been merged into rivals. Here is a sample of a few who made the headlines then but make the history books now.
Gemini Air Cargo Founded in 1995, Gemini Air Cargo operated a fleet of eight DC-10-30F freighters, specialising in providing aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance (ACMI) contract cargo services for other airlines. It was headquartered at Washington Dulles International airport. It was not in financial good health when, in 2008, there was a sudden oil price increase that hit hard its thirsty McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30F fleet at the same time much of the world was reeling from that year’s banking crisis. In 2008 when it went out of business, it was described as the largest air cargo airline to fold since Kitty Hawk went out of business the year before.
Polet Airlines After suffering from financial woes for some time, Russia’s Polet Airlines bowed to the inevitable in 2014 and threw in the towel. It suffered the pulling of its air operator’s certificate (AOC) by Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsia, after suspension for mounting debt. That year, the carrier had had to return one of two of its An-124 freighters after losing a long court battle with the aircraft’s lessor Ilyushin Finance Corp which claimed Polet owed $9 million in back payments on the lease. Polet’s two IFC-leased An-124-100s were seized and grounded. It had flown for 26 years, having been founded in 1988 before the end of the Cold War and the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
Emery Worldwide For what had once been one of the air cargo world’s most famous carriers, the end when it came for Emery Worldwide was inglorious. On December 5, 2001, barely three months after 9/11, owner CNF shut down Emery Worldwide Airlines after a safety dispute with the US government and would create a new company called Menlo Worldwide. The airline, which boasted 37 aircraft, had not flown since August that year when US regulators claimed they had uncovered maintenance shortcomings and threatened to ground all its aircraft. The airline had started in 1946 and for four decades had been the largest US integrator. The FAA has carried out four major inspections in 2000 and 2001 but Emery was unable to meet the agency’s demands for an improved maintenance performance. At its peak, the airline operated a network of service centres in North America and had operations in more than 200 countries. The company’s hub was in Dayton, Ohio. Two Emery planes had been involved in accidents since 1999. A DC-8 crashed in February 2000 in California where three crewmembers were all killed. Another Emery DC-8 crashlanded at Nashville in April, 2001after mechanics apparently installed the wrong part in the forward landing gear.
Arrow Air This airline was founded by a man born two years before the Wright brothers’ first powered flight. In 1950, George Batchelor created an airline that was to last almost 60 years and would become the largest USregistered cargo airline at Miami International Airport. At its peak, the airline employed nearly 450 people at its Miami headquarters and some 250 people in company-owned stations throughout the Americas region. In its heyday, Arrow’s network offered overnight, airport-to-airport service to more than 20 destinations in the Americas. Direct flights were operated to more than 20 destinations by some 60 flights weekly. Customers included international and domestic freight forwarders, integrated carriers, passenger and cargo airlines, the US Department of Defense and the United States Postal Service. The airline filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2010 and ceased operations, owing as much as $500 million to creditors.
Affretair (National Cargo Airline of Zimbabwe) None of the other fallen flags quite had a history like Affretair’s. Started as a sanctions-busting operation to get high-quality beef out of Rhodesia past British-imposed sanctions, it was eventually taken over by the airline of the state created after the Lancaster House peace accord. Affretair had started in the early 1970s, masked as a Gabon-based associate company of Air Trans Africa, using a Douglas DC-8 aircraft. Taken over by Air Zimbabwe in 1983, it became known as known as Affretair (National Cargo Airline of Zimbabwe). Affretair was liquidated in 2000, owing more than half a billion dollars to creditors.
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MK Airlines MK Airlines was established in 1990 in Ghana and served a number of African routes, becoming a UK based airline operating a fleet of Boeing 747Fs before ceasing operations 20 years later in April 2010. Started by CEO Mike Kruger – hence the MK in the name – the airline concentrated on freight services to and from Africa..
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2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018
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Kitty Hawk Aircargo The end for Kitty Hawk Aircargo was started when it acquired American International in 1997, some two decades after its launch. The airline operated US domestic scheduled overnight freight services, as well as air charter services. Its main base was Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, with a hub at Fort Wayne International Airport. At its peak, it employed more than 400 pilots. Staggering into bankruptcy in 2000, it finally ceased operations in 2008. It had lost a third of its business when BAX pulled the plug on its ACMI contract and another significant business stream when the US Postal Service stopped all flying contracts. KHA limped on until October 2007 when the Kitty Hawk Cargo system was shut down. A rump-KHA ACMI’d with 737Fs at DHL/Wilmington in Christmas 2007 and the 727F horse charter operated until January 2008.
Editor : James M Graham Director of Operations : Kim L Smith International Sales Director : Rosa Bellanca International Sales Manager : Valeria Curzio Development Director : Michael Sales Design and Production Manger : Alex E Brown The views and opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers. Whilst every care is taken, the publishers cannot be held legally responsible for any errors in articles or advertisements. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by electronic, mechanical, photographic or other means without the prior consent of the publishers. USA: The publishers shall not be liable for losses, claims, damages or expenses arising out of or attributed to the contents of Air Cargo Week, insofar as they are based on information, presentations, reports or data that have been publicly disseminated, furnished or otherwise communicated to Air Cargo Week. © AZura International 2018
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Evergreen Airlines Capital Cargo International Airlines This all-cargo carrier lasted barely a decade before cost pressures forced a merger with another airline owned by its parent. Orlando, Florida-based Capital Cargo International was formed in 1995 and operated five Boeing 727-200F and three 757200Fs. In 2013, the airline was merged with sister airline Air Transport International, also owned by Air Transport Services Group, to create ATI, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas, with an operations centre in Wilmington, Ohio.
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When Evergreen Airlines was grounded in 2013, air cargo operations lost one of its more colourful operations. For three decades, the airline had close ties with the Central Intelligence Agency. Evergreen operated a global fleet of Boeing 747Fs, running round-the-world flights and keeping an aircraft on standby for secret US military missions. At its peak in 1991, the airline, founded in 1975, employed 950 staff and was a Group II airline, meaning it has annual operating revenues between $100 million and $1 billion. The privately held company had not disclosed revenues since 2004, when it had to do so in order to market junk bonds.
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1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008
The mystery of Flight111 ON THE NIGHT of September 2, 1998, Swissair Flight 111 was following its regular course from New York to Geneva. As it flew near the Nova Scotia coast, the cockpit filled with smoke. The pilots put on emergency masks and manoeuvred the plane to dump fuel into the Atlantic Ocean in preparation for an emergency landing in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They never made it. As the first issue of ACW was coming together, this tragic air crash in the North Atlantic killed 229 souls. What remains the mystery of Flight 111 is the fate of a diamond and jewellery cargo worth $500 million believed to have been on-board that deadly flight. When the aircraft crashed off the coast of Nova Scotia, investigators sought to discover what happened to diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other gems that were supposed to have been in the cargo hold. Very little was publicly known about the gems. Three days before the crash, a popular exhibition, The Nature of Diamonds, closed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. At least one piece from the exhibit was being shipped aboard the Swissair flight. Whoever had lent the item to the museum did
not want any other information disclosed. Other lost cargo from the flight included currency, diamonds, jewellery and Pablo Picasso’s The Painter, worth an estimated at $1.5 million.
informed the government it was withdrawing its application. “Lloyd’s would like to apologize to all families of the victims of the Swissair crash for any distress caused by its application for a
licence to a right of recovery in the crash site. Lloyd’s will not dive or explore the site,” a company news release said. To this day, none of the supposed cargo has ever been recovered.
Lloyd’s of London During the recovery effort, Swissair told the media: “It should be assumed that the valuables container did not remain undamaged in the crash.” What could have happened to the jewels? Had they really been onboard? Had unscrupulous divers taken them? Had they disappeared into the ocean? Insurer Lloyd’s of London paid out an estimated $300 million for the diamonds and jewels, their value at the time. In 2000, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) broke the story that the insurers had applied to the Nova Scotia government for a treasure trove licence. This would allow it to search the ocean floor in what was then a restricted area using a small submarine to vacuum the ocean floor. These plans outraged many of the victims’ relatives and a few days later the company
Photo credit: Aero Icarus of Zurich HB-IWF, the aircraft involved in the accident, seen at Zurich Airport in July 1998, two months before the crash occurred.
The other new kids on the block in 1998 HONG KONG INTERNATIONAL Airport (HKIA) was undoubtedly the most high profile airport opening in 1998. However, projects around the world were coming to fruition that year. Many were for small, almost airfield developments while others would have been more high profile had HKIA not opened that year. Among the airports around the world that opened in 1998, a quartet of significant airports began operations that remain today as key airport and cargo operations.
Antalya Airport (IATA AYT; ICAO LTA) This airport was opened in 1998 deliberately to attract the millions of passengers who come to Turkey’s Mediterranean beaches each summer in search of sun, sea and sand. Having an opening, however on April 1
– April Fool’s Day – did not seem to harm the airport’s luck in that it quickly became Turkey’s third most important airport. Air China, Egypt Air Cargo, General Air Cargo of Venezuela, Kuzu of Turkey and Swiftair of Canada all have freighter operations to and from the airport. Fraport and IC Investment Holding jointly own the airport.
Cabo Frio International Airport (IATA CFB; ICAO SBCB) Aeroporto International Cabo Frio was the first public airport with private management in Brazil when it opened in 1998. Strategically located near the most important Brazilian oil regions of Campos Basin (RJ) and northern Santos Basin (SP) and only seven kilometres from Porto do Forno - Arraial do Cabo, the airport enjoys maritime connections which allows it to provide a bonded area for warehousing and cargo importation. The airport is a driver of the economic, social and tourism development of the region. It boasts the first air cargo terminal in the State of Rio de Janeiro to offer the “advantages of the reliability and safety standards of a public airport, combined with the efficiency and agility of the private sector”, says the airport. It receives cargo from air, land and sea modalities. The airport serves the main areas for the prospection and exploration of petroleum, pharmaceuticals, equipment, materials for the electronic industries of high technology, petrochemical and aeronautics.
at Sepang, Malaysia, began eight years previously when it became evident that the then existing Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah International Airport, formerly Subang International Airport, had limited expansion opportunity to meet the long-term increase in cargo demand expected for the Malaysian capital. The government then decided to build a new airport at an alternative site to accommodate not only the rapid likely increase in air transport volumes, including airfreight, but also to meet the growing demand of the tourism and services sector. The opening problems were not directly connected with cargo but came from errors in the baggage handling system that saw pictures beamed around the world of mounds of congested luggage.
Kuala Lumpur International Airport (IATA KUL; ICAO WMKK) A second key Asian city was to see a major airport open in 1998, with equally disastrous opening moments. The planning and development of the new Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA)
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Oslo Airport, Gardermoen (IATA OSL; ICAO ENGM)
It was near the end of that year on October 8 when an all-new Oslo Airport opened at Gardermoen, costing 11.4 billion Norwegian kroner.
Nine years before, a project had been started to design the main gateway to Norway, Oslo Airport, in an international competition. The task included planning airside and landside infrastructure in addition to the terminal building, control tower and train station. The new airport, when it opened, was praised in the media as the most modern airport in Europe. Cargo operators that use the subsequently expanded airport, include, DHL Express, Jetpak, Aeroflot Cargo, Kales Airline Services, KLM Cargo, Korean Air Cargo, Lufthansa Cargo, SAS Cargo and Widerøe Cargo.
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1998 - 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006 - 2007 - 2008
Name one for the Gipper On February 6, 1998, US president William Jefferson Clinton signed into law the bill passed in Congress that changed the name of Washington National Airport to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. IN THE WEEKS of Air Cargo Week’s planning and launch, lawmakers in the United States set out to honour the 40th POTUS, Ronald Wilson (The Gipper) Reagan (1911-2004), who had left office in January that year after his second term. As is typical in many countries, the decision was taken to name a significant airport after the individual. Washington National Airport was chosen. Presumably this had much to do with the other Washington airport, Washington Dulles, already being named after a significant, historical individual, John Foster Dulles, secretary of state under president Dwight D Eisenhower. The Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport site is rich in historical significance dating back to colonial days. In the autumn of 1938, president Franklin D Roosevelt said an airport would be built on mudflats on a bend of the Potomac River at Gravelly Point, 4½ miles south of Washington, DC to serve the capital. Two months later, on November 21, 1938, the first ceremonial shovelful of dirt was dug.
Terminal On September 28, 1940, Roosevelt laid the cornerstone of the terminal building. The airport opened for business on June 16, 1941. Roosevelt attended a ceremony and observed the first official landing. American Airlines became the first airline to land at the airport. At the time, National Airport was considered the “last word” in airports on opening – a concentration of the ultramodern developments in design of buildings, handling of planes, air traffic and field traffic control, field lighting, facilities for public comfort and convenience and surface vehicle traffic control.
Narrow-body bellyholds Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (IATA: DCA, ICAO: KDCA) is an airport that lies just three miles south of downtown Washington, DC on the Potomac River. DCA is serviced by eight airlines offering direct service to over 90 destinations in the US and Canada using only narrow-body passenger aircraft. Washington Dulles
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International Airport lies some 30 miles to the Northwest. National and international handlers operate at the airport to deal with cargo on flights from Alaska Airlines, American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Southwest, United and Air General. In 2014, the latest year for statistics, it handled a mere 1,800 tonnes of airfreight.
What’s in a name? As recently as 2015, some 16 years after the renaming, there remained confusion in the local population as to whether the airport in Arlington, Virginia should be called “Reagan”, “National” or just “DCA?” The Washington Post found that DC-area residents could not agree on a possible nickname for the facility. A breakdown of 42,000 respondents saw • National — 41 per cent • Reagan — 31 per cent • DCA — 13 per cent • Reagan National — 12 per cent The survey found one major group that avoids the “R-word” is DC-area Democrats. In the survey only 35 per cent of Democrats call the airport “Reagan” or “Reagan National,” compared to 72 per cent of Republicans. This is because the airport’s name is said to have a divisive history, which has led to disparities in nicknames. When Clinton signed the legislation to rename the airport in 1998, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority opposed it, as did local political leaders. After the name change, Metro and the National Park Service were forced to revise signs at their own expense, The Washington Post reports. These sign changes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“Tell John Boehner” That year saw a second on-line petition – not one to find out what it might be dubbed but one
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that wanted to re-write history altogether. Activists in the pressure group CREDO Action simply called for the airport to return to its earlier name of Washington National Airport. Their action was prompted by the decision that year by president Obama to change the name of the US’s tallest mountain from Mount McKinley to Denali. The petition read “Tell John Boehner: Rename Ronald Reagan Airport.” It demanded: “Republicans in Congress themselves pushed through legislation renaming an airport already named after America’s first president, George Washington. And unlike President Obama’s decision, which honours the local people and culture surrounding that landmark, the renaming of Washington National airport was met with resistance from local Virginia residents and leaders. “It was also strongly opposed by airport workers themselves, given President Reagan’s role in breaking the air traffic controllers’ union and mass firing 11,000 workers. Renaming the airport also resulted in significant costs that were left to local government in Virginia to cover.”
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2009 - 2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018 26 June 1999
Watch out
IT SEEMS that there is another date on the horizon on which computer systems could crash or automatically delete record files – the not very far-off date of September 9, 1999 – 9.9.99.
5 July 1999
God Bless America “It could only be achieved in the United States.” A comment on the ‘American Dream’ from Pakistan-born Michael Chowdry, founder and president of Atlas Air.
19 July 1999
Mel culpa
And finally ....
THE LAST PAGE of Air Cargo Week, when not occupied by a fullpage ad, has often been the place in the newspaper where editors have placed left-field, slightly weird, even funny stories that would otherwise not sit comfortably in the more serious news pages inside. Started from the pilot issue and then carried forward into regular publishing by editor Ian Martin Jones, the page was
quickly dubbed ‘News and Views.’ Abandoned by subsequent editors, it has been brought back to life, by popular demand, under the editorship of James Graham. He has given control over to Airway Bill, a professional air cargo man who pretends he knows what he is talking about. Here are some stories from this page we carried in the first 18 months of publication.
OUR APOLOGIES to Steve Matthews at the UK’s newly-launched Webfreight, the Internetlinked website designed for the export air cargo shipper. By the time the caption was written, Steve Matthews had turned into past world champion Steve Davies. Sorry Steve – Matthews, that is.
25 October 1999
Meow
A SCIENTIST planning to take a robot cat from the UK to Russia was stunned when BA told him that regulations prevented the shipment of animals in the cabin and that the ‘cat’ would have to be consigned to
the cargo hold.
8
1999
November
His Darkest
Hour
A LEADING UK newspaper started
has
a
campaign
to have London Heathrow renamed with a more fitting and,
it
suggests,
more
instantly recognisable name. London airport is named after a village levelled to make room for it. The
Observer
favours
newspaper
London
Churchill
–
Winston
presumably
without the WC code.
22 November 1999
Hey good looking THE EVER fashion conscious Virgin Atlantic Airways has decided cargo staff, long ignored by many other carriers, should be included in its corporate revamp. Virgin cargo staff will now sport a new uniform created by headline Irish designer John Rocha. Air Cargo Week Supplement page 19.indd 1
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