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Putzger perspective: Not enough done to protect aviation

After a few years in the business, almost everybody in the aviation industry can remember at least one large-scale disruption to the system. For recent industry entrants in North America, one likely candidate is the massive telecommunications and radar outage on 21 September that snarled air traffic in the US Northeast for more than eight hours, causing the cancellation or delays of over 7,000 flights, including 1,400 flights at the major New York City airports, where 130 world leaders and dozens of ministers were arriving for the annual high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. The following day, the US Transportation Secretary assured the public that such an outage would not occur again after the replacement of the existing air traffic control system, which has been prone to hiccups. Not everybody thinks that a new ATC system will be the kind of magic wand that heralds the end of large-scale disruptions. The US Airforwarders Association has pointed to a report by the US Government Accountability Office that was published on the very day when the disruption in the Northeast occurred. The report identified significant gaps in the protection of aviation communication systems, and it noted that the FAA had not completed the basic risk assessments or built the monitoring needs to address them. "That is not good enough when the threats facing aviation are becoming more sophisticated, and the consequences of failure can spread across airports, airlines, freight networks, and the wider economy," commented AfA executive director Brandon Fried. Such incidents and their causes and catalysts for broader repercussions are not infrequent reminders to the air cargo industry of the vulnerability of the aviation system it is built on. The US is no outlier when it comes to air traffic control. ATC capacity and staffing shortages have been a headache for European operators. These strained systems are faced with a relentless growth in traffic. Airbus forecasts 3.9% annual growth in passenger traffic over the coming 20 years. Moreover, ATC is not the only Achilles heel for air cargo relying on limited foundations. In September, IATA warned that screening alone is not enough to cope with the threat of hazardous goods and called for stronger, collaborative action to muster a multi-layered approach. As with flight disruptions, the risks are outpacing the safety mechanisms, which calls for broad, collaborative measures - at a time when the spirit of international co-operation appears to be on the wane.

Adani Ports bidding for Europe's tank terminals - the test is whether it pays for returns or size

Adani Ports raised its guidance on growth that increasingly comes from outside India; walked away from Associated British Ports; has reportedly made a binding offer of about $3.3bn for European terminal operator EVOS; and has set up a company in Oman as the Port of Salalah prepares to change operator - with the US case against its founder closed, a credit rating equal to India's sovereign and shares that have beaten a falling Indian market by 32 points this ...

Aircraft production, technology and GBA overlooked 10 years ago

Air cargo leaders have said that technology, aircraft production and market potential in the Greater Bay Area are amongst the issues that were underestimated in importance 10 years ago. During an 'Industry Leaders' panel discussion at TIACA Air Cargo Forum, participants were asked what they underestimated or got wrong 10 years ago in terms of how air cargo would evolve. Referencing the current demand for widebody freighters, Stanislas Brun, chief cargo officer at Etihad Cargo suggested that OEMs could have sped up aircraft parts manufacturing to match market evolution and demand that has increased over the last 10 years. "When you look at the lack of development in this matter, every year we are decreasing the number of aircraft delivered. It is scary, as we are not necessarily going in the right direction. And I believe we are in this situation for the next 15 years. "Ten years ago, I don't necessarily think it was an issue, but it was already the beginning of the end." Meanwhile, Dominic Perret, Cathay director of cargo, said that he believed he had not fully realised the market potential of the Greater Bay Area (Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao) or GBA. "Being based in Hong Kong, if we look 10 years ago at how we thought about the Chinese mainland and specifically the Greater Bay Area (GBA), we really thought about it as a key manufacturing base and source of exports. I think what we underestimated and what we're seeing now as a great opportunity it's also become a tremendous market opportunity in its own right." He pointed out the large population and GDP of the GBA, and rapid technology developments in Shenzhen, for example. "We've really seen the Chinese mainland and GBA specifically develop as an import market as well as staying as a significant source of exports," he said. "A lot of our focus has been on connecting cargo through Hong Kong to the wider GBA" through flights and multimodal solutions. Elsewhere, intermodal solutions are now an area that Air Canada Cargo is concentrating on a lot more closely compared to 10 years ago, according to Air Canada's managing director, cargo operations & transformation, Janet Wallace. She explained the carrier's focus used to be more on passenger schedules and supply chain lanes, but this has now shifted to intermodal supply chain networks. Air Canada Cargo has moved "towards supply chain networks fuelled by the freighter capacity, mixing it with the passenger network as well as trucking". She said: "It's very intermodal and all the potential is there in terms of where we can go in the future." However, she added that what she had really underestimated was the scale of work needed to advance digitalisation across the industry. "The thing that I really underestimated was the amount of paper that drives this business and whether there is enough goodwill to get rid of it across all the stakeholders. "We talk about digitalisation, we also talk about AI, and there's a big gap in between the two. How we are going to cross that chasm needs a lot of goodwill from everybody." Jared Azcuy, chief executive of ground handler AGI Group, agreed that technology should have been more of a focus area, alongside growth within the business. "I think there was a time when I felt differently about technology. Today we've fully embraced it and when people say AI, I know what that means," he said. He also remarked: "We've gone through a tremendous amount of growth, in Chicago specifically as well as the rest of the country. There was a time when we were slow to gain additional space for our growing customer base and the growth that they were having. We had to get up to speed on that."