Remember those days when you asked your boss whether it would be ok to work from home and the response was in all likelihood negative? Well, what sounds like a story from a long time ago was common practice in many offices as recently as February of this year: Security concerns, trust issues or poor broadband connections were all good arguments not to further evaluate the possible benefits. Five months into 2020, it seems like an attitude from a by-gone era. Read more >>
The Dresden, Saxony-based specialist enjoys increasing requests to convert the Airbus variants A330 and A320/A321. This was already apparent at the end of 2019 and has become increasingly clear since the outbreak of the corona crisis led to a standstill in passenger traffic. Customers who want EFW to convert one of their Airbus passenger jetliners should hurry up, since slots are getting exceedingly rare, Gilbert Birke, Head of P2F Sales at Elbe-Flugzeugwerke (EFW) confirms. Read more >>
Digital Transformation: What used to be a fashionable, futuristic buzz phrase, finally started gathering speed during the past couple of years, and now COVID-19 has catapulted the topic to almost every company’s boardroom table, given its key bearing on the current Darwinist “Survival of the Fittest” environment. STAT Times hosted a webinar “Accelerating Digital Transformation in Freight Industry – the COVID-19 Impact” on 20MAY20. Here are the bits and bytes. Read more >>
The grounding of many passenger airlines worldwide, has also badly hit the African continent, which similarly relied on passenger bellies for much of its cargo transportation. It has created a severe imbalance on routes, with PPE coming in from China, but next to nothing from Europe, and has led to a critical capacity shortage for perishables going out of Africa. Read more >>
In Munich, the first two weeks of May 2020 give cause for optimism as far as freight-only developments are concerned. The number of cargo-only take-offs and landings was up by 66% compared to the first two weeks of May 2019. And, in the same period, tonnage increased by 54%. Munich Airport’s Director Traffic Development Cargo, Markus Heinelt, delivers an overview in this guest contribution. Read more >>
At 72-year-old Berlin Tegel Airport (TXL), the lights will be turned off in June, says the operator, considerably earlier than previously announced by the public stakeholders; these are
the City of Berlin, the state of Brandenburg, and the Federal Republic.
The forthcoming closure ends a chapter of moving aviation history that began during the Soviet blockade of Berlin and the following Airlift in 1948, when thousands of DC-3 “Raisin
Bombers” landed at newly built Tegel to secure supplies to West Berlin and the survival of the then divided city.
According to credible Ukrainian sources, talks between U.S. aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, and its Ukrainian peer, Antonov, aimed at a closer cooperation are at an advanced stage. There
is even talk of a JV from the Ukrainian side.
The Kiev government initiated the negotiations aimed at further tightening the existing ties between state-owned aircraft producer Antonov and Aviall, a Dallas, Texas-based Boeing
subsidiary.
While many companies are struggling to cope with the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, airlines are filing for Chapter 11, unemployment is skyrocketing, Amazon continues its growth plans, with the nonchalance of John Wayne walking away from a shoot-out. Read more >>
Boeing has been flying in severe turbulence since over a year now. The effects of the COVID-19 crisis are now adding to the battering winds, and it is not yet clear where the world’s now second largest aircraft manufacturer will land. What is the outlook and why are Dreamlifters lining up? Read more >>
Corona has pushed climate protection out of the headlines. Last week, however, the topic returned again very prominently to the agenda – in Berlin, at a German Parliamentary Group panel discussion on rail transportation. The outcome of the presentations and subsequent discussion was that without a drastic increase in rail freight transports, neither the German nor the EU climate targets can be achieved by 2030. Read more >>
There is much going on over at DACHSER, so perhaps Marga Montero’s photo shot in Valencia recently and posted to LinkedIn really does show a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Read more >>
Congratulations BUD, on its 70th birthday. No doubt Budapest Airport’s officials would have preferred an occasion not clouded by the current trials and tribulations caused by the Covid-19 crisis, but anniversaries fall on set dates. So it was left to the cargo business to wave the flag of success on the occasion of the 07MAY20. Read more >>
In FEB19, after a number of order cancellations, Airbus announced that it would stop producing A380s in Toulouse in 2021, with the last order delivery. A little over a year later, the corona crisis led to the A380s being the first aircraft type to be sent to the parking lot of possibly no return. Yet, Lufthansa Technik’s press release on 05MAY20, revealing an anonymous customer’s interest in “the support of the operational change of a first Airbus A380” for use as a temporary freighter, has got the aviation media in a flurry as to who this could possibly be – with long discussions on whether it even makes sense. Read more >>
Seven weeks after most of the rest of Europe, and over 32,000 local deaths and 18.5 million arrivals to the country by air (since COVID-19 broke out at the start of this year) later , the UK decides on implementing a 2-week mandatory quarantine for incoming air passengers – who otherwise risk a GBP 1,000 fine or potential deportation (which begs the question to where if you are a British citizen on a Brexit-passport? But that is by the by.) Rather than adopt the decision immediately, it will come into effect in June and is intended to prevent a second outbreak wave. (As to whether the UK can truly lay claim to having conquered the first already, remains questionable.) Yet, June looks to be a cautious starting point in other countries too when it comes to reviving air travel, with the Lufthansa Group announcing last week that it will start increasing services again that month. So what will passengers come back to, post-covid, when it comes to air travel? And will they return? Read more >>
Deserted airports, closed restaurants, cafes, and duty-free shops, with hardly any travelers in sight. Hence, storekeepers, retailers, and operators of gastronomic facilities located within or outside an airport’s airside area, belong to the victims of the corona pandemic, alongside the airlines, airport operators and their many employees. With the difference that little is heard from the retailers concerned because they lack a strong lobbying organization. Read more >>
Yesterday (10May20), the world’s second oldest airline after KLM filed for bankruptcy after failing to meet a bond payment deadline. 20,000 staff are affected, whose salary payments and jobs are at risk. The Colombian state has denied any financial support. Read more >>
