SHORT SHOTS

AMI celebrates 10 years in Germany
The German arm of the large air freight and express wholesaler, AMI GmbH, has just celebrated its first decade of services in Germany.The German offshoot which can claim more than 700 clients on its books started business at Frankfurt Airport’s Cargo City South in 2005 and is a pioneer of the so called “trade-only airfreight wholesale concept.”
The German organization, as do all other AMI locations, deal only with bona fide freight agents, offering them what they see as competitive export air freight rates along with imports and cross-trade shipments. This, they claim, is achievable due to their global buying power.
AMI Germany also offers its clients added value services such as security screening and collection & delivery.
Happy Birthday.

IAG Cargo steps up Tel Aviv capacity
The fast growing pharmaceutical business in Israel has prompted IAG to increase its cargo and passenger offering between London Heathrow and Tel Aviv.
The present Airbus A321 passenger service between both cities will as of March 2016 be upgraded by introducing a twice daily Boeing 777-200 aircraft on the route.
This move will offer clients a daily cargo lift of almost 30 tons as well as increasing the number of passenger seats.
The Israeli pharma industry welcomes this upgraded service as it is estimated that they can make use of an additional 2.500 tons of belly capacity alone in the coming summer season.

Lufthansa Cargo and ANA expand cooperation in Japan
It’s just about a year ago that Lufthansa Cargo and ANA announced their joint cooperation for booking and moving cargo between Europe and Japan. Both carriers recently announced that the service was operating to expectations and that customer satisfaction was high.
They have now announced that the service will be expanded on their joint network by adding connected destinations in Japan, namely, Fukuoka and Sapporo.
The Tokyo Haneda - Fukuoka sector has started already as of early December and can be booked through both carrier’s systems. Sapporo is expected to be added in the not too distant future.
Fukuoka is seen by both carriers as being an important addition due to the high concentration of steel and automotive companies in the region which rely heavily on time-sensitive air freight shipments.

Jettainer certifies its repair workshops
The Frankfurt-based ULD management and repair company has announced that they have completed a certification process for all of their worldwide repair partners. The certification process which was carried out in the form of an audit went well according to Jettainer and all of their repair partners conform fully to Jettainer’s quality guidelines and have received the company seal as “Certified Repair Partner.”

Lufthansa Cargo adds CSafe containers to its fleet
CSafe, the U.S.-based supplier of specialized cooling equipment has closed a leasing deal with Lufthansa Cargo for the delivery of the CSafe RKN containers into the German carrier’s fleet.
The containers will be in service in LH Cargo’s Cool/td-Active product which is centred around the carriage of temperature-sensitive and other perishable cargo. 
CSafe states that the RKN container can control temperatures between 39 and -13 F and do not contain any dry ice but are operated by so called compressor-driven refrigeration.
Data tracking is also available whereby temperature and actual payload can be monitored throughout the complete journey.

Hellmann Worldwide reshuffles its management structure
The Hellmann group of companies with its headquarters in Osnabrueck, Germany, has just announced that Dr. Thomas Knecht is to join the top management. Mr Knecht will take up responsibility for the Strategy, Corporate Development and Legal & Compliance portfolios.
The company has also announced a new Executive Board structure made up from the Managing Directors of the Finance, Sales & Marketing, Processes/Digitalization and Personnel departments; as well as those managers responsible for the Land, Sea and Air Freight products.

TIACA warns the industry to get ready for the UCC
The implementation of the new European Union Customs Code (UCC) is just around the corner according to The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) and warns that in their view many of the systems needed to implement, provide, handle and maintain the authorizations needed will not be in place on time.
The new regulation obliges all traders importing or exporting within the European Union to provide financial guarantees for the use of temporary storage. This compliance can be waived by the EU authorities, but only on the basis of specific authorization.
A complicated, typical EU compliance, which maybe only the Gods in Brussels can understand.

Brussels Airlines managers “Bike for Africa”

From 27 January to 3 February about 70 Belgian executives will cycle 450 km through Senegal and Gambia, among them 40 Brussels Airlines staff, including the company's CEO Bernard Gustin. The ‘Bike for Africa’ named awareness campaign is the third event to shed light on the ‘Africa is not Ebola’ initiative, launched by Brussels Airlines 2011 to help rebuild Africa’s reputation after the Ebola epidemic. The carrier was the only European airline that continued flying to the three infested West-African countries Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea during the Ebola epidemic.
The previous bike tours were held in Rwanda and Burundi in 2011, followed by Uganda two years later. As result, €233,000 funds were raised to support different humnanitarian organizations. This time “Bike for Africa” targets collecting €150,000.

John Mc Donagh  /  Heiner Siegmund