FlyingTalkers By Geoffrey Arend Geoffrey Arend

Now come a few quiet weeks after which, from September until later November, air cargo trade shows will be front and center.

But wait, the pandemic is still loose and people are still getting sick.

The challenge seems to be for preventive methodology and medicine to position ourselves a half a step ahead of a disease that mutates quickly.

While the dreaded face masks wait in the wings for now, a new global health emergency is rearing its ugly head called “monkey pox” and can be spread via surfaces where it lives for some time.

We are sitting here writing what might take place at The FIATA World Congress in Busan, Korea during mid-September.

Normally organizations are boastful of who some of the higher profile attendees will be.

FIATA has posted this message to their trade show website:

“Please note that the Local Organization Committee (LOC) cannot publish the list of the participants to the 2022 FIATA World Congress (FWC) on its website for privacy reasons.

“Only registered participants will be able to access the participants list through the custom-made 2022 FWC App, which will be made available early September.”

In May we reported several cases of COVID  post Air Cargo India and combined meetings of United Airlines employees in New Orleans led to a rash of infections termed  “super spreader events” by sources.

So now we are at the doorstep of the Fall Trade Show season with IATA World Cargo Symposium scheduled for September 28th in London and the International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) November 8 in Miami and Logitrans set for November 16-18 in beautiful Istanbul.

So maybe the numbers will be a bit off for these shows.

But what is your strategy if you are going?

What can you expect or at least hope for at one or all of these events?




---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support

Talk about no guts, no glory—an overlooked, albeit quite courageous lady named Michelle DeFronzo has worked as an Airline Cargo Sales Agent (CSA) for 30 years.

In 2000 she formed ImEx Cargo, a global logistics and air transport service provider. 

ImEx Cargo like most of us over the past few years fought its way through tremendous negative COVID impacts and was just beginning to recover as a contractor for the largest Russian cargo freighter airline AirBridgeCargo, then came the Ukraine War. ABC, a Russian flag has its own story operating the world’s largest cargo planes, including the now destroyed Antonov AN-225.

Using the airline’s regularly scheduled service, ImEx powered businesses and agency organizations transport products, including pharmaceuticals, PPE, vitamins, equipment, machinery, aircraft parts, and livestock to specific global destinations.

But now due to the sanctions driven by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, ImEx Cargo found its business with ABC Cargo shut down and had to return all shipments that had used Russian transports that were in various customs areas ready for export. ImEx customers including shippers, end customers, and ImEx itself have all been lost to each other at this time in some or all part, orphaned in the fog of war.

Michelle DeFronzo, talks about Putin’s war. She  speak about it with great expertise and certainly with more experience that any other top female air cargo executive.

Michelle is straight from the shoulder, right from the heart, telling it like it is.

“I have been in the industry for 30-plus years and have started seeing some positive changes for women over the past 10-15 years.

“More women are coming into the field and taking on more prominent roles; although it is not very common to see women in leadership positions.

“At the top, air cargo is still a very male-dominated business and exponentially more difficult for women to advance.

To secure contracts, I have had to learn more, know more, work harder for less money and prove myself, time and again.

"My goal has always been to continue building this business by implementing strategies for competitive advantages and providing high-value added service.

"ImEx Cargo has a compelling reputation in the local communities, and the community plays an essential role in expanding opportunities for airline partners.

"We have earned the city, state, and federal government certifications for government contracts under the Supplier Diversity Program. This has been a work in progress, and we are developing partnerships for government contacts and companies with supplier diversity goals. We are certified for all states in the U.S., including Alaska and Hawaii."


---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support

Air cargo, it seems, will always find a way to stay close and working together on the local basis almost everywhere in the world. But in truth events that bring together and actually move the marble, whilst searching for some big ideas from a host of attendees feel like they are fewer and further between.

As you read about Ram Menen, a guiding spirit that raised Emirates SkyCargo from an afterthought to a great worldwide cargo resource and Des Vertannes, an innovative original thinker and very effective one time Head of Cargo at IATA before retirement, picture yourself landing and still engaged in some future situation even from double arms distance, and still loving it.

What in some part accelerated Ram and Des to become who they are, and who they are to each other was a vital, energized industry and the people they came up and worked with all during their career.

Right now air cargo is famous, respected and doing boffo landmark business all over the world.

We believe that it’s a good thing to think of ways to preserve the vital open meeting format of the air cargo industry that in no small part produced these two gentleman and throughout the past sixty years, countless thousands of others.

If you agree and would like to comment, or have something else to say, we would very much like to hear from you.


---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support

Listen Up As CNS Partnership Meets In Phoenix

Here is Flying Talkers Podcast with details of last week in Geneva as  Glyn Hughes, TIACA DG, and  Brendan Sullivan, IATA Head of Cargo headlined the FIATA Headquarters Sessions.

That deal between IATA and FIATA forged in 2016 that was supposed to make the peace between the airlines and the worlds largest organized forwarder group just did not work out.

But something good just happened as revealed in an excellent job of reporting FIATA Headquarters Sessions created by Marco Sorgetti.

Two top flight airline industry executives currently or at one time  tied up with IATA  gathered in Switzerland last week and participated in open and frank discussions at the FIATA Headquarters Sessions event held in Geneva May 18th.

Glyn Hughes former Head of Cargo at IATA now DG at TIACA and Brendan Sullivan  Head of Cargo at IATA were very much a part of the conversation that included whats new and maybe what’s next post COVID for airlines and forwarders.

Both of these gentleman will undoubtedly be situate at Phoenix all this week as IATA Cargo Network Services (CNS) gathers for  a  2022 comeback Annual Partnership Conference.

So what can we expect to hear in terms of looking ahead at CNS might be interesting to preview here ?

What is apparent (fingers crossed) is that our world of airlines and forwarders seem in step to working together a hell of a lot closer post pandemic.


---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support

Picking up the pieces of a historical disaster such as the COVID19 pandemic may not be anything one would wish to do, but reading the comments that economy analysts are sending to press this spring you get a chance to ask yourself what are these explanations trying to teach us and wonder. Looking at logistics, airlines and freight forwarders, that is more or less what I have been doing most of my life, your sense of amazed skepticism gains even more ground.


---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support

Living near a street named Utopia Parkway in New York City, I suspect something unexpected could happen anytime. My great city is a kind of utopia in its own way and loyally prepares you for the unexpected. No wonder something unusual can lurk between the trade show resort meeting rooms and the golf course.

Cargo Network Services (CNS) is conducting its Partnership Conference for air cargo in Phoenix beginning on May 23rd, as we just find out. I like the trade show sense of surprise. CNS, like all organized events, insists on some disciplined routine from participants and we shall be disciplined all right.

Rerun In Hope Of A Result

Last year we ran a story about how the hoped for cooperation between IATA and FIATA announced in Dublin in 2016 apparently was allowed to just slip slide away and did not happen.

Since that time with everything else that is going on, we still wonder what happened?

We think that the question deserves a clear answer from both parties:

You raised a lot of hopes at the the airlines and forwarders for a new deal in cooperation between airlines and forwarders six years ago and then after launching some trial balloons in Canada, just let the cooperation fade away without so much as a long kiss goodbye.

Can someone explain to the industry at large what happened?

Get A Job!

Here are some offers and contacts at BRU with a lyric table setter with thanks at the top for some lyrics from The Band.


---

Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/geoffrey-arend/support