Airways

Guilla ume Hall eux

Global trade cannot survive without air cargo

Has the present outlook of the air cargo industry entirely changing as a result of this pandemic? Before COVID-19, 60 per cent of the global air cargo capacity was in passenger aircraft bellies, so it is a mistake to look at the market just in terms of freighter capacity.

The number of global passenger flights has decreased by 90 per cent. That has created a cargo crunch which has continued since the beginning of the crisis when we saw huge demand for PPE from China.

Today, we see a lot less demand for PPE than what was two months ago. Meanwhile, the usual airfreight commod ities are coming back into the market.

Passenger flights will probably take a lot of time to resume normal sched ules. That will continue to impact the cargo market.

How long would you estimate it would take for air cargo industry to get back to business as usual? What will be the growth drivers? It is hard to predict cargo demand in the current circumstances. However, I feel, the entire world cannot live without com modities being exchanged. Global trade cannot survive without air cargo, and if, for a single day airfreight market demand drops drastically, then I think the world will have a much bigger problem.

Going forward, I believe digitisation and transparency will be a massive dis ruptor in the industry.

Tell us about your current state of operations. We have prepared and organised our cargo division accordingly in light of current circumstances. We are no lon ger in a crisis mode but operating in the new normal.

We currently fly 180 cargo flights per day, a mix of freighters and cargo-only passenger aircrafts. Before COVID-19 it was 60.

Now, we have tripled the number of flights and for which we are fully ac countable in maintaining the safety, loading and finances. What are the areas air cargo professionals globally need to keep an eye on and put up a unified front? There are a lot of important topics on which the industry should present a united front. Air cargo is particularly fragmented and that brings real difficul ties in many ways.

Take digitalisation, for example. It is alleviating a historic lack of transparency in our supply chain, and that’s a very good thing. But certain stakeholders re main reluctant because this change means reinventing themselves and changing their model to bring new added value.

Digitalisation will bring about mas sive disruption to our sector, and as a leading airline, I think it’s our duty to promote and encourage this transfor mation. We hope that our role as an industry leader will allow us to unite the industry and move it towards great er digitalisation, because no airline can do it alone.

Qatar Airways Cargo is one of the world’s leading international air cargo carriers, serving more than 60 freighter destinations worldwide via its worldclass Doha hub and delivering freight to more than 160 key business and leisure destinations globally on more than 250 aircraft. During this time of crisis, the cargo carrier has led the industry by maintaining a global network that never fell below 30 destinations. In doing so, Guillaume

Halleux, Chief Officer - Car go, Qatar Airways

says the airline collected unrivalled experience in carrying passengers safely and reliably and became uniquely positioned to effectively rebuild its network. Excerpts from his interview with Ritika Arora Bhola.

Another area around which we want to unite the industry and bring it to gether is corporate social responsibility and sustainability. There are a lot of initiatives within our industry on these topics, but nothing really unites them.

What we want with ‘We Qare’ is to put sustainability issues at the heart of our activities through concrete actions,

designed by and for the air cargo industry. They are built on the four fundamental pillars of sustainability (economy, environment, society and culture).

How do you look at India’s air freight market? What do you anticipate in the near to short-term? India has performed remarkably well during the COVID-19 crisis. I admire the resilience of the Indian people, and that is because it is in the DNA of the country and its culture.

For Qatar Airways, India is definite ly a very important market. I have high hopes for India’s air cargo industry for the coming 12 to 18 months, and that it will continue to be strong.

In the Indian market, cargo capacity is highly driven by passenger flights, and although those services may be gone for some time, airfreight demand continues to exist.

COVID-19 or not, people still need to eat so the Indian perishables sector will remain strong, as will the strong phar maceutical industry which has been booming since pre-COVID era and will continue to do so.

Regarding the textiles sector, we see no slowdown in India. Some of our main textiles customers have relocated their functions to India.

All in all, I’m quite optimistic about India, a market which is in our backyard.

Please throw light on the categories of cargo that have been moved by Qatar Cargo since COVID-19 hit the industry. How has the carrier adapted to the market vagaries? We are currently moving 7,000 tonnes per day in our Doha cargo hub, and that is the level of a typical October and No vember period. This is only for us and so I cannot speak for the rest of the air lines, but for QR, it seems that the market is back to normal.

Global volumes will be lower than before, but by a smaller percentage than the drop in capacity. This is why we are still seeing a strong air cargo market.

Post-COVID, we have gained market share of 8 per cent, which means that Qatar Airways has actually grown in the last four to five months. As a charity program, Qatar Cargo is offering to move one million kilos of humanitarian freight free of charge between now and the end of the year. Kindly elaborate on this noble initiative. The ‘1 Million Kilos’ operation is open to our freight forwarder custom ers. We have retained the same procedure as usual; we only work with the freight forwarders. This means, it’s up to them to select the charity or charities of their choice. We only ask the charity to confirm if its goods were shipped free of charge.

As for destinations, we are providing access to the entirety of our global network. If we fly there, we can ship the goods.

In terms of goods, we ship all types of humanitarian aid (healthcare, educa tion, food, etc.) with the only restriction being for special shipments (live ani mals and dangerous goods). But as long as it’s charitable, we will ship it. And it might seem obvious, but it’s important to highlight the fact that when a ship ment is booked as part of ‘1 Million Ki

Post-COVID, we have gained market share of 8 per cent, which means that Qatar Airways has actually grown in the last four to five months.

los’, we will not cancel it for a commercial shipment.

This operation has already been very successful, despite only being launched in mid-July. When you do something good, something for the common good, people want to follow suit. That’s true for our freight forwarder customers and also for other stakeholders that aren’t partners of the operation but have con tacted us, for example, to offer free handling for the goods that are being shipped. It becomes a virtuous cycle, and that is one of our goals with ‘1 Mil lion Kilos’.

Does the industry still face consequences of non-compliance when shipping dangerous goods? What are your suggestions towards ensuring hundred per cent safety and scrutiny of cargo products being transported?

Let’s look at a concrete example. Lithium batteries, today, have become a greater risk than explosives because the whole industry – airlines, forwarders, ground handlers and airports – have designed their safety protocols based on the risks posed by explosives. When we screen cargo and packages, we screen for explosives.

In a big chunk of the world, the risk of a lithium battery is higher than the risk of explosives. Lithium explodes and catches fire.

This is happening because the in dustry has not regulated the danger from lithium batteries. We are still stuck in the old mechanisms from the 1980s and the post-Lockerbie regulations.

The technology already exists, and you can screen using X-rays to check for the presence of lithium batteries and whether they are correctly declared, packed, labeled, and stored appropri ately. As an airline we can’t do it alone. It has to be an industry move. It has to come as a coordinated approach to push for regulated screening of lithium batteries.

And as number one, I think our voice will be even louder to push the industry towards change. Safety is paramount.

Now that the lockdown measures are being lifted cautiously, how is Qatar Cargo planning to resume its freighter operations within its global network? We made a conscious decision to continue flying freighters everywhere that we were before. Although, sometimes at a loss but we wanted to maintain conti nuity of service. At the moment, some slight delays in deliveries of our addi tional Boeing 777 freighters are the main challenge we are facing.

After speaking to Boeing, we are expecting three freighters to be deliv ered this year and two more by 2021.