Contingencies avoid severe distruption during US blizzards

In the past two months the US north-eastern region has been hit by blizzard conditions which have been declared “worst ever” in certain areas and which shut all the airports in New York, Boston and Philadelphia and other regional centres, with thousands of flights cancelled. But SA air cargo shipments have been little affected. This, according to local international airfreight agents who talked to FTW, was mainly because the global aviation industry in all its formats had contingency re-routing and rescheduling plans in place to combat just such adverse conditions. Investing in supply chain contingency planning is like buying insurance – you commit time, manpower and resources to something you hope you’ll never need. But if you do need it, that planning can mean the difference between staying afloat and sinking – so it has become a significant issue. And the evolution of the global logistics industry has seen supply chains getting leaner and distances growing longer. And these lean supply chains have eliminated inventory that, in the past, created some buffer for unexpected events. Without that inventory, dealing with unexpected events and supply chain inconsistencies has become extremely urgent. And the US has formalised this contingency planning to a high level. Most lengthy ground delays are events that take the members of the aviation industry beyond their pre-planned and scripted procedures. And being able to meet customer core needs during what is termed irregular operations (Irops) is therefore a critical problem for airports, airlines, and aviation service providers. Now, in the wake of weatherrelated multi-hour disruptions in the US in 2007 and 2008, several workshops have been held to proactively address these challenges and set the stage for communication, collaboration and coordination and identify best practices within the industry. These workshops identified potential action areas for improvement, among which were: • Airlines, airports, government agencies and other system partners should update contingency plans and should include sufficient collaboration; • Communication among these parties should be collaborative, coordinated and ongoing; and • Service providers should continually evaluate the level of services provided in meeting customer needs during Irops. To address these action areas, a national task force – including government officials and representatives of airlines, airports, service providers and consumer groups – was appointed by the secretary of the US department of transportation and produced model contingency plan recommendations in November 2008. And, in the wake of this formalised action plan, the logistics consultants JP Morgan Chase Vastera have produced a 10-point, what-todo plan for those looking to build a contingency procedure into their business operations structure. This involves assessing risk and running scenarios in the organisation to initiate thinking about how to respond when one of these risks becomes a threat and, in dealing with extreme weather like hurricanes and blizzards, keeping an eye on the weather forecasts and understanding alternative transportation options and rates.