SHORT SHOTS

TIACA appoints new Secretary General
TIACA has announced a successor to Doug Brittin who retires by end as Secretary General.
Vladimir Zubkov will head TIACA as from January 2017.
Zubkov has been a member of the TIACA Board since 2011 and is also Chairman of the Industrial Affairs Committee as well as being a member of the Global Air Cargo Advisory Group (GACAG).
Mr Zubkov looks back on more than 40 years of aviation experience which included roles within ICAO and most recently as Vice President of the Volga-Dnepr Group of Companies.
Mr Zubkov is quoted as saying that; “I am honoured to be leading the only organization that represents all parts of the air cargo supply chain.” He added that: “building on Doug’s successes with the regulators and key international organizations, we will continue to work closely with ICAO, IATA and the World Customs Organization (WCO), freight forwarders and all other partners.”

Japan Post Reports 30% Fall in Profit
Japan Post Holdings Co and its banking unit posted drops in half-year profit for the six months through September, and kept their forecasts for a decline for the full year.
The group posted a net profit of 149.73 billion yen (US$1.39 billion), a 29.9% drop from a year earlier, while its banking unit reported 150 billion yen in half-year profit, a 12% de-cline. Its other main unit, Japan Post Insurance Co - the nation's biggest by asset size - recorded a half-year net profit of 42.5 billion yen, compared with a 48.5 billion yen profit a year ago.
Japan Post Holdings is responsible for the country's extensive network of post offices and owns 74% of the banking unit, on which it heavily relies for its performance.
The postal service unit posted a 28.7 billion yen net loss for the half year, compared with a 12.4 billion yen loss a year earlier.
The group’s result were positively influenced by the performance of the Australia-based logistics provider Toll Group, which was purchased earlier this year. However, this was not enough to compensate for the relatively weak performance of the core postal business.

LH Cargo offers new e-Tracking tool
Modern e-Tracking along with individual messages to the user.
That’s what LH Cargo plans to achieve with their new e-Tracking tool function which will enable all users constant access to the actual status of their shipments.
Boris Hueske, Vice President Digital at LH Cargo is convinced that the new e-Tracking update will be of great benefit for the carrier’s clients.
He says more transparency and efficiency coupled with the fact that every client can de-cide himself on how shipment status information should be passed on. The access to up-to-date information on the actual flight status of shipments will allow clients to be able to plan better within the supply chain process.

PACTL hits new freight record for October
The Shanghai based Pudong Int’l Airport cargo Terminal Co., Ltd (PACTL), has generat-ed the highest tonnage in the company’s history during the month of October.
A total of 153,607 tonnes of air cargo passed through the premise during the month. This represents a volume growth of almost nine percent year-on-year.
Figures for January to October of this year show an overall growth of 3.2 percent with 1,353,969 tonnes having been handled.
This figure also represents the strongest first ten months growth in PACTL’s history.
PACTL’s Managing Director, Lutz Grzegorz who has headed the company since March 2009 will enter partial retirement and be replaced by Christian Haug as of 1. December 2016. Haug was formerly LH Cargo’s Director for North & Central China.

CEVA logistics shows good 3rd quarter performance
CEVA Holdings LLC has published their third quarter results which show what they term as their Top Line Growth figures moving along positively.
July to September showed CEVA generating an EBITDA amounting to $75 million. This figure is 19 percent above the second quarter result.
The company states that Air & Ocean volumes as well as the Contract Logistics sector show strong upward movement.
This is proven, they say, by Freight Management EBITDA going up almost 21 percent and Contract Logistics by 15.2 percent.
On another note: CEVA also announced that it has expanded its cooperation with Mercedes Benz at their car manufacturing plant in Vitoria, Spain. CEVA’s initial collaboration in Vitoria with Mercedes began in February of this year after they won the tender to handle metal products and provide logistics services to supply production lines.
CEVA also won a second tender some weeks ago whereby they have added a range of new secondary flow supply services for the German carmaker in Vitoria.

AF-KLM Cargo slows in October while LH and IAG pick up
Europe’s three largest legal airlines continue to strive on improving their cargo results.
In October, both Lufthansa Cargo and IAG Cargo managed to increase traffic volumes, whereby the real problem child, Air France-KLM Cargo, showed a further decline.
LH Cargo upped their Freight Tonne Kilometers (FTKs) by almost 5 percent which gave them a cumulative January to October FTK increase of just 0.3 percent.
IAG Cargo listed a 5.9 percent FTK increase in October which enabled it to reach a 1.1 percent cumulative increase for the first ten months.
However, AF-KL Cargo reported hitting heavy turbulence again.
October showed a minus 3.5 percent result on FTKs and January to October a heavy 6.7 percent downfall compared to 2016.
What are the other two doing right and AF-KL not?

Canada’s Cargojet expand with Air Canada into Europe
Air Canada and Canadian cargo carrier Cargojet had recently announced that they would cooperate on freight services to South America. The first destinations were listed as being Bogota and Mexico City.
Now, both airlines have stated that their European cooperation will begin with services to Frankfurt International Airport.
Cargojet started flights on 19 November with weekly operations to FRA using a Boeing 767-300 freighter.
The deal between both carriers entails Air Canada wet leasing B767 freighters from Cargojet to enhance and increase their cargo uplift.

John Mc Donagh  /  Nol van Fenema