FlyingTalkers By Geoffrey Arend

“As the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach go from bad to worse we now have LAX at a near breaking point with airfreight storage in some cases costing at 24 hours after arrival in excess of $1.00 kg per day. “Hang on as this is going to get much more chaotic before it gets better.” The speaker is Peter Lamy President of Intelligent Supply Chain Management (iSCM) and American Worldwide Agencies (A...

Bill Boesch is a true air cargo pioneer having served at top posts for Seaboard World, Pan American, American Airlines, Emery, DHL and elsewhere. One of my fondest memories is Bill inside a container with Julie Kupersmit at the TIACA Show in Manhattan 40 years ago drawing sketches for a new container on scrap paper. Little wonder that later that Bill was a force behind Envirotainer. Here Bill who...

Escape From The World Trade Center The Jim Larsen Story As the twentieth September 11th since the World Trade Center tragedy in New York City is upon us, somber memorial services and recollections continue around the world recalling that terrible day. We remember being at home when the doorbell rang on September 13, and there stood our friend Jim Larsen, Manager of Air Cargo Business Development f...

Last week attendees in Miami at the 30th Annual Cargo Network Services (CNS) Partnership, the American-based pioneer air cargo organization dedicated to advancing cooperation between airlines and forwarders, were introduced to a new look as CNS met its new President Frédéric Leger. Frédéric Leger has held several inside jobs at IATA and is referred to as a “right hand man” to IATA DG Willie Walsh....

As CNS gets underway this weekend in Florida, (August 29-31) featuring Willie Walsh, Director General of IATA, on his first public mission with gravitas after his appointment, I would gladly ask him questions regarding the IATA approach. Starting with Air Cargo, is One Record the totem for which IATA decided to ditch its IATA FIATA program? Was the entire IATA FIATA negotiation just a straddle str...

Fall Ahead In New York 22 carriers at Newark Airport's main air cargo handling Buildings 339-340 are about to be displaced and right now are scrambling for space as walking papers are sure to follow the deal the airport operator Port Authority of New York & New Jersey has made allowing Amazon complete control of those buildings—it might be useful to look at some numbers to see how goes the car...

Amazing Inception Need Meditation Amazon is cooking up a deal with the New York New Jersey Port Authority that, if enacted, could end up turning over 23 acres or the heart of Newark International Airport Air Cargo handling via Buildings 339 and 340 to one company, Amazon, leaving almost every other cargo operator at the airport including 22 airlines, whistling in the wind.

The International Air Cargo Association Summit scheduled for San Francisco for November 8-10 will now take place on March 22-25 in San Francisco. We could not find a location for this meeting but you can check for further developments & location @www.tiaca.org. When Air Canada Cargo put out the news late last month underscoring the best air cargo quarter the airline has ever seen, we sat...

Dr Yang Yuntao was born in Changchun, in Northeast China. Changchun means “Long Spring” in Chinese.  During his 20 years serving as the head of legal affairs in Sinotrans, Dr Yang lead the legal work of various milestone events, such as the initial public offering, litigation and arbitration cases, both at home and abroad, bankruptcy reorganisation of listed shipping subsidiaries, etc. Dr. Ya...

We can never forget that irresistible determined picture of some comely, nice- looking people masked up out on the ramp and inside Virgin Atlantic aircraft bringing life to otherwise empty passenger cabins .When you think about it, very early in the pandemic Virgin Atlantic Cargo made it clear that the red coats were going to take the bull by the horns and damn the pandemic they stepped out brilli...

Twenty five years ago on July 17, 1996 230 people were lost, when Trans World Airlines Flight 800 bound for Paris from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City exploded above East Moriches, Long Island and fell into the Atlantic OceanI This past weekend more than 200 people gathered in Smith Point County Park near the crash site that contains a  black tablet wall inscribed with...

Member of the FIATA Board of Directors, Turgut Erkeskin is a seasoned, yet youthful, energetic and quietly confident presence. But make no mistake about it, he is all there, albeit just below the radar, a most interesting transportation executive from Istanbul. Turgut doesn’t shout for attention. In fact, a major force in Turkish cargo as a long time shaker and mover of UTIKAD, the high energy for...

Meet Jason Berry Vice President Cargo at Air Canada. Exciting news last week that Air Canada Cargo is adding freighters to its fleet is some very positive news of the impact and impression  of air cargo to the world in 2021.So now with its first freighter due to arrive sometime early in Q4 of 2021, we thought the man carrying the responsibility to make the future Air Canada Cargo plan work mi...

During the last year, the industry has seen quite a change in individuals at key organizations that represent the airline industry. Many senior people have left the associations for other positions. What is worse, we have not seen anyone filling these positions that right now are more important than ever, for an industry that is in a state of dramatic growth. As if the Transportation Security Admi...

Will CNS Finally Disappear? The backroom whispers have always been there, even as legendary Tony Calabrese founded Cargo Network Services (CNS) thirty years ago as a landmark U.S. organization with the mission to create a middle ground between airlines and forwarders and shelter the partnership from anti-trust legislation in the U.S. “IATA doesn’t really like CNS.” Well, what goes around comes aro...

What became small during the opening stages of the pandemic and is getting bigger now as COVID-19 fades in some places? Why are some publishers and trade show companies and organizations insisting size matters and live meetings are needed in 2021 whilst lockdowns continue in places all over the world? World Environment Day: Projecting a ghastly reality ahead. Here's hope . . . Dan Muscatello knows...

Good thing Sri Lankan Airlines has made some moves to ramp up cargo as COVID -19 has closed almost everything else in the island nation down. FIATA took a  look  in the crystal ball at the rest of 2021 and decided discretion is the better part of valor, nixing its plan to hold its big annual conference in Brussels come September. It's June this week as 2021 is moving rapidly toward being...

Was I born in this India?  Every morning you wake up with hope that soon fritters away when you look at the newspaper, your WhatsApp group chats that speak of yet another death and extended family members, friends and acquaintances falling prey to Covid-19. There is, perhaps, no family that has remained untouched. I lost a dear cousin and another in a few days. Added to that was the fact that...

Reality is that COVID-19 is the demon, and that demon still impacts life and is a danger in some manner or form more or less in various places as you move around the world. Being together is something we all want. But jumping the gun is both ill-informed and irresponsible. Indian aviation is passing through its most difficult phase. In a financial crunch even before the pandemic started, this time...

Often people ask-"Hey FlyingTalkers why not do some short news items?"  Must admit that item news that my friend and early colleague, the late Tony Funnel branded Pumping Traffic News & Comment for us in 1975, which appeared in our newspaper Air Cargo News until 2010 and then online in our E-Zine Flying Typers for the past decade, has gone missing from FlyingTalkers. Truth be told in...

After many long years of start and stop between the giant association of the airlines IATA and the 100 plus year old international association of freight forwarders FIATA, it looks like that deal we announced and delivered a key-note speech for in Dublin a few years back (2016) is toast.

My colleague and very best friend Joachim "Jo" Frigger Chairman of EMO Trans died on Monday April 19. Here is the press release from EMO Trans. Later, after the shock of this sudden and great loss for people all over the world has passed our time of mourning, we will share with you our story of a decades-long friendship and alliance with this truly remarkable air freight forwarding pioneer. Jo Fri...

As Women's Month Marched along and the world celebrated International Women’s Day March 8, Jennifer Frigger Latham, Vice President, Sales & Marketing at EMO Trans based in Long Island, New York was hard at work away from the spotlight from home with her husband Paul and the couple’s two small children creating a counterpoint as the faces of love in the world of air and ocean shipping. What Jen...

This episode of FlyingTalkers is about performance and hope. We have been aware of the stellar performance of Brandon Fried, President of the U.S-based Airforwarders Association for some time now. Here we try and make the case why this man and his hardworking association deserve your support. Lost & Found Speaking from our recent experience when we finally came around to thinking about life af...

Francesco Parisi's view on the strategic potential of the port of Trieste cannot be clearer: he sees the Adriatic like an enormous navigable canal to the heart of Europe, cutting transit times to the east by almost a week.