ACW Digital 15th March 2021 by Azura International

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The weekly newspaper for air cargo professionals No. 1,123

15 MARCH 2021

YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL!

SO MUCH FOR SUPPORTING BRITAIN’S ESSENTIAL WORKFORCE

An open letter to Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London But we survived. A business that employs Dear Mr Khan, “This around 100. A business that has invested heavily

s the Mayor of London and head of the executive of the Greater London Authority, you’ve taken the decision to extend the Low Emissions Zone (LEZ) emissions standards from March 1, making it tougher for heavier vehicles to drive within the Greater London area. This includes Heathrow. All roads within Greater London, those at Heathrow and parts of the M1 and M4 are included. The charges are payable 24 hours a day, every day of the year. The charges range from £100 to £300 per day with penalty charges at £500 or £250 if paid within 14 days. As a company involved in the transfer of perishable – mainly essential food – cargo both into and out of the UK this move is crippling our business. We have daily consignments of food departing from Heathrow and coming in from Heathrow which we handle on behalf of our customers to ensure a seamless onward journey. We also receive daily consignments of European produce to our packhouse, which is then packed and loaded, ready for distribution to the UK’s major food retailers. While our own fleet of trucks is Euro VI compliant, many of the European hauliers that we work with to deliver food are not and are now refusing to come to Heathrow because of the unacceptably high charges. During the pandemic, we have worked tire-

move is crippling our business”

lessly to maintain our operations despite the challenging conditions, so that the supply chain to the UK’s supermarkets and key retailers could remain intact. We have also been responsible for the safe transfer of essential PPE. Our employees are classed as ‘Essential Workers’ because of the important role they play in keeping supermarkets stocked with vital food supplies. We were then faced with the incredibly stressful fallout of Britain’s departure from the EU. To say there has been a distinct lack of clarity from senior decision makers is an understatement. The handling of Brexit and its impact on our industry has been shambolic. We have had to employ teams of people to try and keep up to speed with the constant changes, which were still being modified as late as the first week of January. Two major blows to the industry which could potentially have destroyed an established British business.

in helping the post-Brexit UK transport infrastructure by creating an approved Border Control Post and ERT (bonded warehouse) facility away from the ports at Spalding to enable the continued speedy movement of produce. A business that is expanding and generating new jobs. A business that supported UK manufacturing to the tune of £500,000 by investing in a new fleet of state-of-the-art trucks. A business that is closely aligned with Britain’s plans to ensure Heathrow can compete with other major European airports.

And how are we repaid? At a time when you are trying to assert Heathrow as an equal to Paris CDG and Amsterdam in terms of airfreight the introduction of this tax has effectively made this mission impossible. And with it you have also made our plans to extend our operations in Heathrow untenable. This will lead to people losing their jobs as we will be forced to relocate; the business will have to spend thousand of pounds in re-training new staff and those staff that are able to move to a new location will ironically be adding to the cost of fuel emissions by generating more traffic on the roads as they are forced to make longer journeys to work. So much for supporting Britain’s essential workforce. Mike Parr, managing director, PML (Perishable Movements Ltd)

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INSIDE AMERIJET: COVID-19 VACCINE

AMERIJET has brought COVID19 vaccines to the Caribbean and Central America on behalf of Odyssey Logistics. These shipments were ... PAGE 2

QATAR AIRWAYS CARGO: 10M+ VACCINES

QATAR Airways Cargo has surpassed a milestone with 10 million COVID-19 vaccines transported, including COVID19 vaccines for ... PAGE 2 SILK WAY TECHNICS: 15TH BIRTHDAY

FOUNDED in 2006, the company initially focused on providing maintenance services for CIS-manufactured aircraft before ... PAGE 4

WHY WE ARE A WACA SPONSOR

PAYCARGO is sponsoring the Industry Achievement WACA award as we believe it is essential to recognise and celebrate the stand-out efforts ... PAGE 4

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NEWS

Davies Turner: UK-China rail freight rates reduce WITH the continued grounding of much global bellyhold capacity on the key UK/China route and a softening of buying rates post-Chinese New Year, Davies Turner is to reduce the rates for its Express China rail freight service, which is the only direct weekly fixed-day intermodal service between China and UK. Furthermore, as a result of new rail services being launched in China, the UK’s leading independent freight forwarding and logistics company is also recommencing its FCL service, which has proven popular in the past. Tony Cole, Davies Turner’s head of ocean commented: “Our weekly LCL volumes on the overland rail freight service have increased from just two

High Cube 40-foot consol containers per week when we started the service in 2018, to six or seven, 40-foot HC consols per week now. “The new rate of $300.00 per 500 kg/cu m will become applicable from mid-March and delivers a reduction of $70 per 500 kg/cu m on LCL shipments compared to the current rate. “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on airfreight capacity and the well-documented, ongoing problems in the deep sea/ocean freight market have seen more and more shippers, traders and co-loading freight forwarders taking advantage of the cost and time savings, as well as the greater reliability of the intermodal overland option.”

Qatar Airways Cargo surpasses 10 million vaccines transported QATAR Airways Cargo has surpassed a milestone with 10 million COVID-19 vaccines transported, including COVID-19 vaccines for UNICEF as part of the five-year Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to support UNICEF’s Humanitarian Airfreight Initiative. Since December 2020, Qatar Airways Cargo has transported COVID-19 vaccines to twenty countries all over the world including Algeria, Cambodia, Denmark, Pakistan Rwanda, South Africa, the Netherlands, to name a few. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of its global teams and ground handling partners, the carrier has provided large popula-

tions in several countries access to vital vaccines. Guillaume Halleux, chief officer cargo said: “I am both proud and humbled to support the vaccines distribution and helping UNICEF to reach the maximum number of

people, everywhere. We remain committed and resilient in the fight against the pandemic and together with our partners, we will ensure the safe, timely and efficient transportation of these life-saving supplies.”

Amerijet delivers COVID-19 vaccines

AMERIJET has brought COVID19 vaccines to the Caribbean and Central America on behalf of Odyssey Logistics. These shipments were a part of the Indian government‘s gifted Covishield AstraZeneca vaccines manufactured by the Serum Institute of India. The vaccines bound for Jamaica, Guyana and Nicaragua, were transferred via Amerijet’s Hub at Miami. The Amerijet 33,500 sq m facility includes a 3,700 sq m temperature-controlled handling centre. “Delivering 350,000 doses

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of life-saving vaccines to destinations in our service region is something our entire company is proud of and all of us at Amerijet are honoured to be part of the global initiative to get the virus under control,” said CEO Tim Strauss. “Our pharma handling team’s quality standards, uniform processes, and transparency provide our forwarder and healthcare partners with reliable logistics services every day and is uniquely valuable as we push back against the pandemic.”

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NEWS

Hermes Logistics launches new GHA solution

CARGO management systems (CMS) provider Hermes Logistics Technologies (HLT) has teamed up with data sharing and connected cargo community specialist Nallian to empower ground handling agents (GHA) with an end-to-end solution to digitalise and streamline their landside management processes. Nallian’s landside management applications will complement Hermes New Generation (NG) Ecosystem solutions, offering GHAs a paperless approach that provides end-to-end visibility and control across their supply chain. “We are empowering the ground handler by joining our ecosystems together to give

PayCargo Why we are a WACA Sponsor them better control and increased efficiency through better customer experience and superior functionality,” commented Yuval Baruch, chief executive officer, HLT. “Nallian’s complementary offering lent itself to a partnership with Hermes and our collaboration will ensure a best-in-breed process with the technology to work for our customers.”

PAYCARGO is sponsoring the Industry Achievement WACA award as we believe it is essential to recognise and celebrate the stand-out efforts of those that work tirelessly to help improve our industry. Their hard work and passion inspires us to keep reaching for higher goals and ultimately drives us to secure a bright future for all. PayCargo is the industry’s leading online financial platform for moving money and vital remittance information between payers and vendors. We use forward-looking, innovative technology to facilitate transparency, efficiency, expedite cargo movements and reduce costs in order to optimise our partners’ businesses through digital transformation. Without the ambitious efforts of individuals and teams to push the

boundaries of what is currently available, progress would stop. This has been made even more difficult the last 12 months as the air cargo industry has had to rapidly evolve to handle issues brought about by the pandemic where funding and the ability to work closely together has been drastically affected. Despite the hardships and uncertain business environment, huge amounts of work went in to ensuring customers received the best service possible, new solutions became available and that businesses across the globe mitigated negative impacts of the crisis. To be able to work effectively under such conditions and find the time and resources to continue progressing the industry as a whole, is nothing short of phenomenal and deserves the widest industry recognition possible.

Silk Way Technics celebrates 15th birthday FOUNDED in 2006, the company initially focused on providing maintenance services for CIS-manufactured aircraft before expanding to include airlines operating flights to Azerbaijan. In 2010, with European Aviation Safety Agency certification came the chance to service Boeing, Airbus, Embraer, ATR and Gulfstream aircraft. The company has been recognised as a global aircraft maintenance organisation by the aviation authorities of the United States, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates, amongst others.

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The Silk Way Technics hangar complex covering 26,000 sq m at Baku’s Heydar Aliyev International Airport is the largest in the Caspian and Central Asian region and is equipped to carry out maintenance of several aircraft

simultaneously. “We are not resting on our laurels and are constantly improving our capacity to provide maintenance for the latest-generation aircraft,” said Silk Way Technics director general, Emin Safarov.

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USA

CHICAGO ROCKFORD: GEARING UP FOR AIRFREIGHT GROWTH AFTER a busy 2020 for the cargo department, construction of the 8000 sq m cargo hub is well under way at Chicago Rockford International Airport (RFD). “[The airport] ended 2020 with the largest year-to-date landed cargo weight in the organisation’s history,” explained Zack Oakley, deputy director of operations and planning, Chicago Rockford International Airport. “In 2020, cargo numbers grew by more than 15% to 2.7 billion pounds of landed weight at

RFD compared to 2.3 billion pounds in 2019. The leading driver of the cargo growth was e-Commerce purchases. “Cargo growth has continued at a high pace since the 2019 holiday season due to the pandemic in which a rise of purchases online continued throughout the year. That, combined with the cargo flights carrying essential products and PPE to the region, increased the number of cargo flights and new international cargo operations.”

This increase in operations has created the perfect opportunity to grow the cargo infrastructure at the Airport. “The construction of the 9,000 sq m, stateof-the-art International Cargo Facility remains on track and we have plans to open it this summer. “Already, 100% of the facility is leased by Emery Air. This is the first of a three-phased expansion to benefit RFD’s growing cargo operators. “Construction on an additional 10,000 sq m building will begin (and likely completed) later this year; 50% of that building is leased. “RFD is also proactively working on logistics opportunities both inside and outside the airport fence. Real estate is abundant, affordable, and provides airlines and their suppliers and support organisations on-site connections for more efficient impact on the bottom line.” Oakley explained the improvements will allow RFD to continue to grow its already bustling cargo operations, allowing more freight forwarders to land at RFD and consider the airport as their regional base. “RFD has a large land package, much of it unencumbered and free of legacy issues. Additionally, RFD has an on-airport handling company, Emery Air, which has also been gearing up and investing heavily in ground handling equipment and staff hiring and

training. “The arrival of new additional air cargo flights will have on-site team that is especially well-trained in handling large freighters and breaking down and building up air cargo.”

YoY change per product category (2020 vs 2019) from USA to all international destinations. Source: World ACD

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EUROPEAN AIR CARGO Lufthansa Cargo renews FRA airfreight centre LUFTHANSA Cargo will further develop and renew the logistics centre at its home hub in Frankfurt on a modular basis. The supervisory board of the German airfreight company has approved respective investments in a comprehensive infrastructure programme for the logistics centre. The complete modernisation of the Lufthansa Cargo Center has already begun in January 2021 and is to be completed in 2028.

"With this renewal of our logistics centre, we are investing in our airfreight base in Frankfurt and thus creating the structural requirements

for even faster and more efficient airfreight. In doing so, we are also making the jobs of our employees at our most important logistics

location in Germany safe for the future," explains Peter Gerber, CEO of the cargo airline. "The special thing about our infrastructure programme is that it is able to react flexibly to market developments and the changing needs of our customers," emphasises Harald Gloy, Lufthansa Cargo's chief operations officer. The cargo centre in Frankfurt is Lufthansa Cargo's home hub, handling around 80% of its global freight volume. The carrier's commitment to digitalisation, new product requirements and the further increasing importance of e-Commerce have changed the demands on the logistics centre. In addition to new buildings, existing building sections and warehouses are also being modernised as part of the eight-year infrastructure project. Renovation and renewal of the buildings will take place during ongoing operations.

Ireland to jet calves to EU REPORTS in The Guardian reveal that Irish authorities plan to fly unweaned dairy calves from Ireland to other EU destinations from May, in an effort to address growing unease about the length of the journeys made by thousands of animals shipped each year to mainland EU countries.

Farming groups have welcomed the air trial. “We want to see calves flying out of this country,” the president of the Irish Farmers’ Association, Tim Cullinan, is quoted. While the cost of flying is double that of sea transport, flights would also enable the industry to reach new markets.

EU certifies Moscow Cargo MOSCOW Cargo has been issued the RA3 certificate by the German National Civil Aviation Administration (Luftfahrt-Bundesamt), which inspects and certifies airports and airlines on behalf of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). The RA3 certificate (Regulated Agent Third Country) confirms that the terminal of Moscow Cargo fully complies with all aviation security requirements established by the EU for cargo and mail des-

tined for or travelling through EU countries from the territory of non-EU countries. The Luftfahrt-Bundesamt auditors paid special attention to the implementation of a security programme by Moscow Cargo that includes measures to protect the cargo and preserve its integrity throughout the entire logistics cycle before the transfer to the airline. Moscow Cargo is the largest cargo operator in the Russian Federation.

ATRAN & AirBridgeCargo deliver two engines to Paris ATRAN Airlines in co-operation with AirBridgeCargo Airlines has accomplished a complex delivery of aircraft engines for Yakutia Airlines from Russia to Paris. Two Pratt & Whitney engines, PW123 for Bombardier Q-300, weighing 1,520 kg in total were transported for MRO services. Volga-Dnepr’s Cargo Supermarket concept which provides a one-stop-shop experience for all the customers enabled the ABC&ATRAN team to offer a complex multimodal solution that covered additional loading control in Yakutsk airport, export customs clearance in Krasnoyarsk airport, documentation processing, coordination of all the departments and constant communication with the customer. Vitaliy Andreev, ATRAN’s general director, commented: “Based on our unique expertise in engines’ transportations, qualified specialists, an extensive database with all the tech specifications and delivery requirements, not only do we provide time and safe delivery but also complex logistics solution for our customers. Cargo Supermarket Concept allows for smooth coordination of all the organisational issues though one-stop-shop thus simplifying the process and making it more transparent.” In less than four days ABC&ATRAN team co-ordinated all the details, with cargo being flown onboard ATRAN’s Boeing 737800BCF on February 8 from Yakutsk to Krasnoyarsk. Upon arrival in Krasnoyarsk, both engines were reloaded onboard ABC’s Boeing 747-8F for further delivery to Amsterdam and trucking to the final destination in France.

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NEWS

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY

Women in Aviation YOU CAN HAVE IT ALL! and Logistics Pledge A launched CW’s Yasmin Turner spoke to Nadia Ribeiro, managing director for Latin America at CEVA Logistics, about her life in the cargo and logistics industry.

ACW: Was logistics an industry you ever envisioned yourself working in?

hange Horizon and Meantime Communications are calling on businesses, trade associations and individual professionals to sign the Women in Aviation and Logistics Pledge to promote gender equality in the airfreight industry. The Pledge will serve as a vehicle to mobilise the industry to advocate for change and define concrete targets and an action plan to achieve gender equality in air cargo. “Although the debate on improving gender balance in air cargo has been going on for many years now, there are still too few women in decision-making roles, speaking at, or even attending, industry events,” said Céline Hourcade, founder and managing director of Change Horizon. “We have outstanding female professionals in this industry and their distinct expert voices must be elevated through gender parity.” “We have been talking about this for far too long, it is time to take action,” said Emma Murray, founder and chief executive officer of London-based logistics PR firm Meantime Communications.

Programme objectives: Raising awareness of women air cargo professionals by celebrating and promoting their great achievements in the industry Launching a public database of female speakers in aviation and logistics Setting-up forums at global, local, or company levels to share best practices and actionable advice among industry peers

“We want the Pledge to kick-start a movement for change, which will benefit us all, transforming air cargo into the diverse industry it should already be, and encouraging and attracting the next generation of air cargo leaders.” “At Change Horizon, sustainability and gender equality have been at the core of our values since the moment I started the company in September 2019,” added Céline. “The benefits of having gender-balanced teams span far beyond making a company more competitive, innovative and profitable.” Murray said: “Sustainability is in Meantime’s DNA, and I believe we all have a duty of care to this industry, which has given me so many opportunities, and to the young talent ready to join, to make it the best it can be. There is no excuse for standing by, we can achieve this by working together.” All the companies, associations, and individuals who will sign the Pledge or support the cause will be invited to join the programme, which will kick off with an introductory session at the end of March 2021. Establishing a knowledge centre with industry facts and figures to raise awareness on current gender gaps within air cargo, including the gender pay gap and other inequalities, and open public debates to challenge the status quo Increasing gender balance in senior management and leadership roles Pushing for progress in broader diversity and inclusion metrics across the industry

Nadia Ribeiro: I can tell you that I started [in this industry] by coincidence! I am originally from Jordan and my family immigrated to Brazil when I was a teenager. When I landed here I was very upset. I was a teenager. I didn’t want to leave my friends and my home. So I thought I’d better find a job at an airline so I can get free tickets and be able to go back and visit with my friends! I went to Air France in Sao Paulo. I asked if they had a job and they said they had one in the cargo department, in cargo reservation. My customers were the freight forwarders and I soon got invited to join one of them and this is how I went into the industry. I really fell in love with the business and really enjoyed it. ACW: Living in Egypt, Jordan, UK, US and Brazil, you’ve experienced many cultures. How have you drawn on these experiences in your career? Ribeiro: Having experience in different cultures really helps understand [people’s] mindset. I speak with customers in different countries and decisions are made in a global environment, so having had that international exposure is really very helpful. I always encourage people if they have the opportunity to make such an experience. It’s always very enriching and afterwards can help you in any kind of scenario. ACW: In your career, how have you seen the industry change in terms of gender equity? Ribeiro: I have participated several times in my career in working groups where we encourage and develop women to move up in their own careers. I’m always telling the girls in my area that they shouldn’t give up one thing for the other [family or career]. You shouldn’t have to choose. Everybody [in the industry] knows what they have to do. They have to have open recruitment in top positions and to always have female candidates. Of course, you have to be careful to choose the right person for the right job. In big companies, having internal work

groups and seminars to prepare ladies who are interested in growing in their careers is also important. To have real experiences where you show what you’re actually doing and not just trying to match a statistic. ACW: What’s your favourite part of your job? Ribeiro: I love it all! I am always asking myself when the right moment to retire is and I’m always putting it off! I’ve decided not to set a date. Why should I stop if I don’t feel like stopping! I really enjoy leading the team. I love motivating them and creating that team spirit. We know we’re going in the same direction and fighting for the same thing, ACW: What advice would you give to a woman considering a career in logistics? Ribeiro: You need to enjoy cultural diversity because this is a very international job. You also have to be somebody who is able to interact with different cultures and different mentalities within different situations. I would also say: You can have it all! You can have a family, you can have a degree, you can have a lot of things for yourself and you can have a career. If you organise yourself, you don’t have to give up anything to have your career.

More interviews in next week’s issue

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