‘Airlines who played the discount game face difficult year’

During much of last year the much-desired “light at the end of the tunnel” was, according to Gerd von Mansberg, MD of The Cargo Connection, “reduced to a mere glimmer”. “But,” he told FTW, “since November it has lit up and now seems like a 60-w globe.” An example of this, he pointed out, was air exports increasing – as the consignee countries’ economies again begin to show growth. But many members of the aviation industry have been trying to find ways of overcoming the detrimental situation during the recent economic crisis – exercises for which they may suffer later. “Most airlines have played the discount and ‘special market rates’ game,” said Von Mansberg. “They are the ones who will find it tough to get the rates back up. “Others have just sat it out at lower volumes but have protected their yields. The sensible ones? I think so!” Amongst those who have used the recent recession in a more productive manner, Von Mansberg cited Egyptair as an example. “That airline used the opportunity to revise its commercial strategy – having its first-ever Worldwide Cargo Conference in October 2009. “One outcome of this was that Egyptair Cargo has stated that it is an African carrier and not Middle Eastern.” Von Mansberg saw that as a shift in the airline’s thinking – with the likely result that more focus will go to African development. “It was triggered by new fresh thinking and participation from the airline’s 51 country offices – and the beneficial consequence was that a new way forward has been plotted. “I attended this conference, and came away very enthused and knowing that we are now really attending to the needs of our clients – the forwarders. Another happy thought in Von Mansberg’s mind is that the Cargo Connection started selling Air Namibia from November. “Their special pro-rate agreements with other airlines had begun to lapse,” he told FTW, “so a first step has been for us to enter into an SPA with Airlink Cargo, and also get busy renewing two others with international carriers. “This has resulted in a new route to Lusaka, Zambia, another route to Accra in Ghana, and a widebody connection between Windhoek and Luanda in Angola.” The temporary grounding of the 14 Jetstream 41 aircraft in Airlink’s fleet has also had no real effect on the cargo relationship with The Cargo Connection, according to Von Mansberg. “Airlink Cargo is working on their development, even within the restraints due to this temporary grounding,” he said. “Aircraft have been hired in, and there have been schedule and frequency changes. “But, generally, we are still servicing the African regional clients as well as ever. All this has meant in many cases is one bigger plane versus two smaller ones.” And, despite a host of rumours last year about an imminent shut-down of the cash-strapped carrier, Air Zimbabwe, it is doing business as usual, according to Von Mansberg. “Indeed,” he said, “due to some wide-body operations in December the tonnages are up. And an amazing fact is that their on-time-departure statistics put many African carriers to shame.