SHORT SHOTS

QR Cargo adds Latin America & Miami to its freighter network
Effective 2 February 2017, Qatar Airways Cargo will start serving Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Quito in South America as well as Miami in the U.S. 
All flights will be operated twice weekly by deploying Boeing 777 freighters. The aircraft will first position from Doha to Luxembourg, the cargo carrier’s European hub, and proceed to Sao Paulo in Brazil, Buenos Aires in Argentina and Quito in Ecuador.
On the return leg, the aircraft will stop in Miami, Florida and Luxembourg before continuing to Doha.
The launch of this new triangular freighter route brings the cargo carrier’s total freighter destinations in the Americas to 12, while offering belly-hold services to 13 cities on the continent. QR’s Chief Officer Cargo Ulrich Ogiermann, stresses that the upcoming services complement the belly-hold cargo capacity on the carrier’s daily flights to Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and Miami. Uli goes on to say that major commodities out of Sao Paulo, Bueno Aires and Quito comprise fresh flowers, perishables and pharmaceuticals, whilst imports into South America include a wide variety of products ranging from medicines, automotive, chemical products to high tech commodities and equipment for the oil and gas industry.
Miami in the United States will serve as a distribution hub for  air freight to and from the Latin American and Caribbean regions.
Currently, QR Cargo has 21 freighter aircraft in operation, with 11 of them being Boeing 777Fs. 

WFS sitting on the Cargo iQ Board
John Batten, Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) Interim CEO Europe, will represent the ground handler on the Board of Cargo iQ.
John was, until notice of his appointment on December 19th, an observer to the Cargo iQ Board.
The Board consists of twelve airline and freight forwarder representatives and the organization is a non-profit membership group which aims to create and implement quality standards for the global air freight industry.
John Batten, who started his career in air cargo with TNT, and where he was MD Global Network and Air Cargo Sales for over 25 years, stated that “It is an exciting time to be joining the Board as we take next steps towards the launch of our Smart Data project, and new audit and certification scheme.”
Batten moved to WFS after having held senior management positions with Qatar Airways and Swissport.

CEVA gets a new Australia & New Zealand boss
CEVA Logistics, the large supply chain management company has announced that Carlos Velez Rodriguez has been appointed as Managing Director for their Australian & New Zealand group of companies.
Mr Rodriguez will be based in Melbourne and reports directly to CEVA’s CEO, Xavier Urban.
He joins CEVA from FM Logistic, having worked there for the past ten years and was Group MD for Central Europe.
He takes up his new responsibility within CEVA with immediate effect.

Kerry Logistics boosts its Spanish business
One of Asia’s leading logistics service providers, Kerry Logistics, announced on December 20th that they will take over the freight forwarding business of Bofill & Arnan S.A. which is one of Spain’s top freight forwarding and customs broker companies.
The takeover is in line with Kerry’s previously published global development strategy.
Bofill & Arnan was established back in 1920 and has grown to be a well-respected logistics entity which presently has a special focus on the Chinese, Indian and Taiwanese markets.
It offers its clients both air and sea freight solutions including door-to-door and customs brokerage services.
The acquisition serves to strengthen Kerry Logistics market presence on the Iberian peninsula.

AMI USA revamps their website
The USA branch of AMI, the trade-only airfreight and express wholesaler has redesigned its airport-to-door (A2D) website in order to provide what they see as more competitive and comprehensive rates for their import sector business lane.
According to a release by AMI, this was necessary as the original pricing site was out-of-date and was introduced many years back by AMI USA’s forerunner, UAC, which was taken over by AMI in 2005.
The new A2D site is said to offer up-to-date and more streamlined pricing for customs clearance, airline terminal fees and domestic to-the-door delivery. There has also been a reconfiguration of the storage of trucking rates in the new website system.

Hactl gains another award
The Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited (Hactl) based at HKG’s Chek Lap Kok Airport, has won this year’s Enterprise Innovation Award in the category - Logistics & Transportation.
The award which is organized every year by Questex Media is given to companies in Asia who are seen to be pushing innovation through use of technology and so called, process best practices.
The judges on the Questex panel decided for Hactl because of what they felt is the company’s traditional spirit of innovation and its striving to improve operations further through adopting mobile computing.
The trophy was handed over to Eric Poon, Hactl’s Senior Manager - Performance Enhancement at a ceremony held recently in Singapore.

Addition Fleet News
ABX Air has restarted flying again for Amazon (see CargoForwarder Global 19. Dec).
Amazon had previously decided not to use ABX aircraft for U.S. domestic flights after the past pilots’ strike and due to the uncertainty of future operations.
This ban has been lifted and there are several of ABX’s B767Fs now operating again for Amazon from the carrier’s base in Wilmington, Ohio to destinations within the USA.

Everts Air, the Fairbanks, Alaska-based freight carrier, which operates with a mixed fleet of B727F, DC9F, MD82F and Embraer 120RT-F aircraft, plans to introduce their first MD-83 freighter aircraft.
This will be a passenger-to-freighter (P2F) conversion of an ex-Alaska Airlines passenger MD-83.
Aeronautical Engineers (AEI) will convert the aircraft into its freighter configuration.

Vallair, the Luxembourg-based carrier has taken delivery of a B737-400F which is also a P2F conversion done by AEI. It is said that the freighter will be operated by ASL Airlines, Hungary.
ASL also plans to convert another B737-400 passenger aircraft which also once flew for Alaska Airlines into a freighter.

John Mc Donagh  /  Heiner Siegmund