SHORT SHOTS

IN BRIEF, THE LATEST AIR FREIGHT INDUSTRY NEWS.

Joe Sutter passes away
The man who brought the venerable Boeing 747 aircraft to life, Joe Sutter, has passed away at the age of 95.
Joe was in the early development days of the “Jumbo” the chief engineer at Boeing for the project.
It was his ideas and plans that convinced Boeing to carry on with the 747 project and original planning was to use the aircraft as a freighter and not as a passenger variant.
Ironically, the Boeing 747 freighter programme along with the passenger version seems to be on the way to being rundown altogether.
Boeing celebrated its 100th birthday last month, but Joe Sutter, a real aviation pioneer did not manage to reach the magic 100.
This spiritus rector and visionary behind the B747 will be greatly missed by all in the field of aviation.

ATR and DHL renew spare parts logistics contract
According to the new agreement signed today (5 Sep), DHL Supply Chain will be respon-sible for the global inventory management and orders of aircraft spare parts for the ATR aircraft manufacturer. The new contract covers a three-year period. ATR cooperates with DHL since 2005 and renews its contract for the third time. The company is the global mar-ket leader for regional aircraft up to 90 seats and its aircraft are used in the fleets of 180 operators. ATR is a joint venture of the two major European aerospace players Airbus Group and Leonardo.
The partnership between DHL Supply Chain and ATR covers inventory management, international distribution of spare parts, as well as operations related to maintenance that require a very high level of responsiveness. DHL Supply Chain also ensures the man-agement of custom operations for spare parts and equipment, in collaboration with DHL Global Forwarding.
As part of the new contract, DHL Supply Chain will also carry out kitting operations for ATR. In the aerospace industry, component assembly requires particularly high technical skills and a high quality level. DHL’s distribution center in Bonneuil, France is ISO 9120 certified and especially recognized for these tasks. 

UPS starts on their Centennial Hub expansion
The Louisville, Kentucky based logistics giant, UPS, has broken ground on its planned expansion of their hub in Louisville.
The present facility was brought into service in 2007 and is now far too small for UPS’s operations there.
The expansion which will cost UPS something in the range of US$300 million will triple in size and reach a total of almost 840,000 square-feet enabling UPS to almost double its present sorting capacity of 85,000 packages per hour to around 160,000 per hour.
On top of this, UPS plans to create a further 300 new jobs in the facility once it is completed.

CargoLogicAir give Volga-Dnepr Gulf maintenance contract
Maintenance C-Checks for CargoLogicAir’s Boeing 747-400 freighter has been awarded to Volga-Dnepr Gulf.
V-D Gulf is also part of the Volga-Dnepr Group of companies who also are owners of CargoLogicAir.
Maintenance work which will be carried out at the V-D Gulf facility in Sharjah also includes airworthiness directive and service bulletins, modifications and so called Out-of-Phase (OOP) work.
It is hoped that CargoLogicAir will also in future give V-D Gulf the same contract for their upcoming fleet of B747-8 freighters.

Atlas Air goes for five-year deal with Fedex
FedEx Express has done a deal with Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings whereby Atlas will provide FedEx with additional capacity in their peak flying seasons.
The deal will start in 2017 and runs until 2021.
Atlas will provide B747-400 aircraft for these peak season services which normally are in December of each year, but can also be earlier.

LACHS moved hundreds of horses from Liege to Rio
Liege Air Cargo Handling Services (LACHS) is proud of the fact that they have successfully moved a total of 180 horses plus around 80 tons of equipment to the Olympic Games recently held in Rio de Janerio.
The horses and equipment were moved on five freighter charter flights and the horses were accommodated in the LACHS new “Horse Inn” at Liege Airport beforehand.
At the end of August five return charter flights were made to bring the animals, attendants and equipment back to LGG.
There will be a further two freighters with horses to Rio during September for the upcoming Paralympics.
It seems that the horse transport in Liege is catching on as further flights to Los Angeles with 66 horses and to Calgary with also 66 horses are planned.

Jettainer launches JettCare
Jettainer, one of the leading ULD management companies has just introduced a new service which they list as JettCare.
This is intended to create more awareness regarding the value and importance of better handling of ULDs and aircraft pallets.
The programme which is being set up will entail training of thousands of ground service staff to make them more aware of the expenditure involved when equipment is not handled properly and is damaged.

United Airlines gets a new President
Scott Kirby who was previously President of American Airlines has now become United’s new leading man.
Mr Kirby has already taken up his position as United Airlines President and he will report to United’s CEO, Oscar Munoz.
He held the American Airlines President position from 2013 to 2016 when American and  US Airways joined forces.
The move to United comes somewhat as a surprise to many considering that he was only three years with American.

Silk Way Airlines finally get U.S. rights
It was a long fought battle for Silk Way Airlines who have for some time been trying to obtain traffic rights for cargo flights into the U.S.
The carrier applied back in 2014 for operating rights into U.S. cities but was blocked by objections from National Air Cargo although there has been an open skies agreement between Azerbaijan and the U.S. since 2014.
The granted rights allows Silk Way, Silk Way West and SW Italia all cargo rights for U.S. operations.
It has not yet been announced which cities Silk Way will operate to, although it is believed that Houston and Chicago are at the top of the list.

John Mc Donagh  /  Heiner Siegmund