The Garden City Hotel in Long Island, New York with its distinctive cupola originally designed by Stanford White atop the structure, has been a landmark hostelry in New York for over 125 years. Here was the ground zero center of the global aviation universe for a couple of days in 1927, situated at the exact spot from where a young air mail pilot and soldier of fortune named Charles Lindbergh spent his last moments sleeping fitfully upstairs, resting his head on a pillow for a few hours, while d...
Oct 05, 2022•34 min
Today PayCargo pulled off a show stopper announcement at International Air Transport Association (IATA) World Cargo Symposium in London announcing that the financial service company is spreading its wings beyond North America into Europe, the Middle East and Asia. PayCargo also revealed that they will be expanding their product offering and will be providing payment solutions for air waybill charges in addition to the ancillary charges they do today. PayCargo brought in air cargo industry expert...
Sep 28, 2022•8 min
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, ...
Jun 29, 2022•33 min
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 e...
May 31, 2022•26 min
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 Ses...
May 23, 2022•32 min
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.
May 10, 2022•26 min
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 a...
May 02, 2022•32 min
On the road again like hundreds or maybe thousands of others in logistics right now, Amar More, the Kale Logistics co-founder and Chief Executive Officer carries a business card that states in no uncertain terms: “Committed to transformation of global logistics industry”. Let us discover together why this is indeed a true statement, as many in our industry already know. We wonder about some of the drivers that moved and are still moving this company into a greater digital future in transport and...
Apr 11, 2022•43 min
Terms of Endearment . . . United Cargo wins Sustainability Award at The International Air Cargo Association TIACA San Francisco Executive Summit March 23. Jan Krems , who never in his imagination would have planned a situation like this, as President United Cargo almost singlehandedly saved the airline with the most ambitious cargo program in airline history, accepted the award saying simply: “I am proud to be in an industry that is really delivering.” Stars fell on San Francisco Wednesday night...
Mar 26, 2022•28 min
Bill Spohrer had done about as much as anyone you ever met to lift organized cargo when he served as CEO of Miami-based Challenge Air Cargo. He became a driving force of a great all-cargo enterprise based at MIA that landed four square behind a new idea for a trade show called Air Cargo Americas and also helped lift the comeback of TIACA. Bill celebrated reaching 90 years of age last June 11th. Today, living quietly and comfortably out of touch in Florida with wife Lynn, Bill is smiling his way ...
Mar 11, 2022•30 min
When the 2022 version of Air Cargo Americas/Supply Chain Americas Show launches this week on Tuesday March 8 after having suffering its 2021 version postponed because of COVID, the event venue will look pretty much the same as always. Maybe after all the uproar of the past two years that continues, 105 booths and 1,500 people signed up with many walk-ins always a factor at this event can be looked upon as some kind of miracle. For those of us who operate whilst in Miami on coladas and pastries f...
Mar 07, 2022•36 min
Say A Prayer For Imma As Imma van der Walt was undergoing brain surgery at Duke University Medical Center in a nine plus hour procedure meant to arrest an enlarged brain tumor, her Dad, well-known and respected transportation executive Lionel van der Walt and Mom, the always gracious and lovely Ilonka were standing by as the procedure continued all day Monday February 21 I spoke to Lionel, who said: “Never been this scared of anything in our lives before, but we know the surgery must be done. “F...
Feb 23, 2022•31 min
Happy Valentine's Day It is that time of the year when love shines. But India’s flower growers/exporters will hardly feel the warmth of love this Valentine’s Day 2022. Cupid will once again bring tears – like last year – to flower growers/exporters. Many had hoped that exports would rise but that did not happen. Farewell Alfred Kuehlewind We were saddened to learn of the death of Alfred Kuehlewind this past weekend in Los Angeles. In 1974 Alfred opened Commodity Forwarders Inc. (CFI) as a one-ma...
Feb 14, 2022•31 min
For the first time since Daniel Fernandez picked up the baton from the first TIACA DG, the late Garth Davies, TIACA has a running chance as the world emerges from the depths of lockdown and uncertainty to what could be a new deal as an organization. The place was called The Owl and it was located just outside the airport on the corner of Farmers & Guy R. Brewer Blvd., and what fun it was. The Owl, a local air cargo haunt operated by Joe “Owl” Mancusi was reportedly an occasional gathering po...
Feb 07, 2022•30 min
In this COVID-19 (semi) lockdown early-February 2022 as we receive notes of greetings and good wishes for Christmas cards that were send in early December, we have been thinking, based on the slowdown in the US mail service maybe it is not too early despite the snowfall to think about flowers &. Valentines Day Always a big part of Valentines Day now less than two weeks away , we are wondering if space demand for floral shipments that always cube out before they weigh out will be severely imp...
Jan 30, 2022•34 min
Before you Google to ogle, think about the implications of balancing a woman on top of a skyscraper like a Christmas ornament. Lady Liberty she ain't. The latest ad from Emirates features a flight attendant standing atop the almost 3,000-foot Burj Khalifa in Dubai—the tallest skyscraper in the world. Given the context of an ongoing pandemic and the resultant travel woes that have arisen (A recent American Airlines flight from Florida to London that had to return because ONE traveler refused to w...
Jan 27, 2022•26 min
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree is a phrase that is typically said in connection with children who show qualities or talents that are similar to those of their parents. When EMO Trans Jenni Frigger Latham appears on the stage in New Orleans at the first panel Wednesday morning to moderate a discussion on sustainability that includes the former Head of IATA Cargo and current President of TIACA Glyn Hughes and the former President of Cargo Network Services (CNS) and current title of PayCa...
Jan 16, 2022•27 min
Just came across an announcement that American Airlines Hangar 3-5 have been cleaned up at LaGuardia Airport That caught my eye as the notice also mentioned that the original AA domestic passenger facility at LGA Hangar 1 one of the most historically significant buildings on any airport anywhere had been demolished. Hangars 3 an 5 look OK in the style of the late 1930s and for sure have a lot of history. But to compare them in value historically with Hangar 1 is like trying to match up some pseu...
Jan 12, 2022•33 min
Can't wait to get to an air cargo show? Airforwarders Association is at just that inside a big downtown hotel beginning January 17 in New Orleans. You know all about Cargo in Cabin that saved the world and kept the airlines flying for the past two years. Did you know Cargo In Cabin was invented and performed aboard 40 long range commercial passenger carrying jet aircraft 60 plus years ago by Pan American World Airways Clipper Cargo? Thanks to our readers Bob Rogers and Martin Beasdale we discove...
Jan 04, 2022•23 min
As we say goodbye to yet another year of pandemic caused by COVID lets remember those parted while looking forward to 2022 hopeful that this seemingly endless string of months that now has turned into years of living in doubt, may finally move into the broad sunshine of a new day people all over the world pray is soon upon us. Bill Boesch has always been the common sense voice in the throng. From the early days at Seaboard World and at Pan Am Clipper Cargo; serving as President of American Airli...
Dec 29, 2021•19 min
Greatest Charity Outreach In The History of Air Cargo Slowly in the U.S. people are getting together, although, in some quarters the feeling continues to prevail that the risk of COVID is still there, so maybe better to lay low. That's not good at all for some people anxious to get back to life, as they try to help others. Recently a cargo fundraiser by Lufthansa Cargo at ORD during of all things, a Christmas Party (remember those?), brought to mind Cargo Human Care headed up by Fokko Doyen. CHC...
Dec 12, 2021•30 min
Mixed in Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and a phalanx of other branded retail days almost too numerous to mention, days between now and Christmas 2021 let's take a deep breath and give thanks to those deliver it by hand to others in need.UPS celebrating 70 years of the UPS Foundation feels like a good place to start. A Slugger Without A Bat The exemplary In the game of baseball who is able to hit the ball far distances for home runs and extra base hits just three times times every ten...
Dec 03, 2021•32 min
Some time ago, shipment of dangerous goods by air and the threat to air cargo from unidentified and unlabelled hazardous materials in shipments was described as “The Wild West of Dangerous Goods". Now Radharamanan Panicker has decided to do something about that, having gone out on his own and formed his own company: Dangerous Goods Management (DGM) India. DGM India is a fully recognized dangerous goods training entity in the Indian air cargo market and Panicker is possibly one of the few experts...
Nov 22, 2021•25 min
Has anyone noticed some ominous changes going on at air cargo leadership like IATA? Most distressing is to witness almost a mass exodus of vital key air cargo staff from the ranks of carriers, even though air cargo was carrying the water for these companies during the last 18 months. Does that make any sense? The answer we think is cutting staff in pieces: if you are always thinking passenger, your mentality will always result in good people of air cargo being swept away. I guess thinking about ...
Nov 12, 2021•27 min
Now Alitalia is gone. As you join us today a 74-year saga of the airline business is now gone, maybe forever joining a very long list of airlines that some of us grew up with and thought might never go away. We do not pretend to to know all that much about Alitalia. But we know someone who does and shares his observations here. Marco Sorgetti, the recently retired Director General of FIATA and, for our money, the greatest DG to serve that iconic nearly 95-year old Geneva-based forwarder organiza...
Nov 03, 2021•30 min
Newspapers and TV now feature shipping containers as front page news, whilst shoppers frantically clean out Costco, Target and Walmart and other stores to the bare walls as Christmas and end of year holidays fast approach. All in all, 2021 will be remembered for those images and a time everyone was kicking the cans. IndiGo has initiated a freighter program and is in the process of sourcing four A321 aircraft. “The A321P2F – Passenger-to-Freighter conversion is the most efficient narrow-bodied fr...
Oct 26, 2021•30 min
Peter Hansen died on September 9th in Cape Town, South Africa. He was 87. For thirty-five years from the dawn of modern air cargo, Peter was most important, and amongst his peers a very respected, down on the ground innovative air cargo builder of the last century. You may not know him. We realize that time marching on can be ferocious and people can get lost in the shuffle. But not this time. For air cargo, Peter Hansen simply was the whole package back at the beginning when creativity was the ...
Oct 18, 2021•34 min
Can you believe it? Scheduled on October 5th for the first time in recent memory, IATA includes an air cargo panel at its passenger AGM titled "What’s Next for Air Cargo After its Heroic Performance in the COVID-19 Crisis?" "Now we are underway building a new state-of-the-art cold chain facility in Greater Toronto Airports Authority Toronto Airport as the next logical step, that will be a 30,000 square foot facility that fully aligns with the rollout of our initial freighter network, which will ...
Oct 04, 2021•26 min
“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 (AWA) based in Hawthorne, California. Cargo facilities at most U.S. airports are inadequate for what’s...
Sep 28, 2021•23 min
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 delivers the unvarnished truth about things, and is still quite active with military transport, talk...
Sep 19, 2021•36 min
