Bon Bini ! This friendly welcome offered to the traveller at Hato International Airport and one knows immediately: I have arrived at Curacao. The language ? It’s Papiamentu, the local Dutch-African-French-Portuguese-English-Spanish Creole dialect which nicely represents the unique and vibrant atmosphere you experience during your stay.

The sun blessed island 60 km off the coast of Venezuela is part of what are being considered the ABC islands, Aruba, Curacao, Bonaire and home to the newest leisure cargo mandate carrier, namely Dutch Antilles Express or short DAE.

While the Lesser Antilles as part of the West Indies have a close proximity to Venezuela and Columbia a good percentage of DAE’s flight schedule is geared up to service this region besides offering multiple daily service to the sister islands of Aruba and Bonaire.

With a fleet of 3 x ATR and 2 Fokker100, DAE provides services also to St. Maarten, Bogota, Caracas, Cartagena, Valencia and Santo Domingo, each flight able to carry cargo from 500- 2.500k.

In spirit of the relaxed attitude of the Dutch Caribbean signatures to the contract were put at
“The Clochard.” With a location directly at the Rif Fort overlooking the entrance of the largest port in the Caribbean and one of the biggest natural deep water harbours in the world, this restaurant is one of the better fine dining experiences in Curacao.

Fred Lanson, Chief Commercial Officer of DAE commented: Effective 01st June 2010 cargo transportation will become a steady source of incremental revenue for us. With total cargo management services of leisure cargo there is no need to reinvent the wheel but hauling revenues from the first day of operation.

Ralf Auslaender, Managing Director of LC pointed out: With capacities of DAE we offer a cargo micro network for the region. Simultaneously we link these services vice versa to our macro network connections of Arkefly CUR-AMS-CUR with daily widebody flights further on into our European hubs.

Present Regional Director Americas, Erik Fraenkel added: Revenue forecasts are high and we will work hard for it’s achievement.

Even though “The Clochard“ might someone led to believe that a good wine gets you under bridges only, Fred, Ralf and Erik rather felt that this will become yet another successful business enterprise.

KR 01 June 2010

Our GSA for this important airfreight market is one of the closest relatives considering a cooperation already dating back to 1998. LTU Asia which will shortly undergo name changes in line with Air Berlin acquisition of LTU already demonstrates its close relationship with Air Berlin Group having offices located in the same building on busy Silom Road, only a few floors from each other.

Cargo development in Thailand for touristic orientated airlines such as Air Berlin looks back to humble beginnings at times of LTU operations.

Operating Lockheed 1011 aircraft with a sealed front belly door and no cargo-worthy floor certainly represented serious limitations of cargo acceptance.  Cargo sheds at the old Don Muang Airport were a shabby hangar of the former airbase. Capacities and logistics changed with arrival of new aircraft types like B767, MD11and A330. The opening of Suvarnabhumi airport though excelled Thai Cargo logistics into the 21st century.
 
Raymong Honings who runs the GSA-operation for us came to Bangkok in March of 1971 already, on behalf of a German tour operator, then, from 1978 till 1983 he worked in Sri Lanka to return to Thailand in 1983 again.

LTU was pioneering airfreight during the early nineties and leisure cargo introduced the flexible new business model since 2000.

Despite difficult times our GSA produced a record result in 2009 carrying 3.300 tons to Europe and onward into our network in the Western hemisphere. Preferred customers are about 45 out of the numerous air cargo agents who issue AWB’s for single shipments as well as for consolidations. Presently there is another drift going on; several manufacturers of typical air cargo related products are moving away from Thailand to cheaper neighbouring countries in the region. The daily wages for factory workers in the textile- or plastic industry are about US$ 2.50 in Cambodia, Laos or Vietnam compared with US$ 5.00 in Thailand. Still the entire industry is slowly recovering from the 2008/2009 crisis. Most of the shipments on leisure cargo flights are semiconductor components, textiles as well as medical equipment and clinic-supplies like latex gloves for example. Our GSA is always cautiously evaluating to participate in the prominent perishable market segment – or not - because of the insecure payload availability. Often the westbound flights are restricted weight-wise due to heavy seasonal headwinds.

At Suvarnabhumi Airport airlines have a choice of two competing handling partners; leisure cargo has an overall contract with Thai Airways International cargo. By this our export and import shipments receive a top-treatment in the huge state of the art cargo terminal and on the ramp. Our man at the airport is Cargo Supervisor Yuthana Punsuwan with an 18 people LTU-Asia-team at the station. “Thai Cargo as well as the customs authorities are very cooperative “, he confirms.

Like every year the leisure cargo carriers serving Thailand, i.e. Air Berlin and Condor, are reducing frequencies coping with the shrinking demand for the off season during European Summer. From May to November we have flights from Bangkok, Phuket and Krabi to Berlin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich connecting with the entire network there.

Raymond would like to live in a more peaceful country again, see an economy recovering from the endless crisis and consequently growing exports and imports followed by higher yields on the trade lane. Also - he muses “…it would not be bad at all to find a suitable cooperation carrier between Bangkok and Australia.”
guenter mosler

Yuthana Punsuwan (left) and Raymond Honings at town office BKK.

After thorough negotiations and an in depth marketing study Turkish Number One privately owned air carrier PEGASUS Airlines has appointed leisure cargo as its GSA Cargo in Germany effective January 15th. This seems only to be the beginning for a number of other joint business opportunities for the two partners which will become available in the near future. Under its umbrella leisure cargo offers a real global network of 275 destinations served by 17 mostly touristic orientated airlines for which total cargo management services are being performed.  PEGASUS with its extensive network in Turkey including Northern Cyprus has to offer quite something in return.
Obviously the “newly weds” did not waste any time. Mid February already an international sales meeting took place in Dusseldorf at leisure cargo headquarters directly involving all concerned; top local management of PEGASUS so to say – the field as well as corporate headquarters from Istanbul – and leisure cargo sales & services.
Not only did the partners discuss the actual realities like the slow cargo market in general. They designed a business plan involving the strong ethnic travel between Turkey and Germany itself but also the availability of leisure cargo´s numerous SPA agreements that could enhance growing Turkish exports to The Americas and The Far East as well. It was a real creative round table meeting.
It is commonly known in the industry that PEGASUS and Air Berlin are “relatives” already in a double sense. PEGASUS affiliate, ESAS holding, acquired an 18.3% stake in Air Berlin, becoming its largest shareholder. Thus, both airlines’ websites are now interlinked, with each other’s flights listed on both flypgs.com and airberlin.com.
During the recent meeting PEGASUS VP Cargo Aydin Alpa – looking into the crystal ball - even anticipated the possibility to operate full freighter aircraft on certain routes between Turkey and Germany; of course an interesting possibility after the market recovers. He added: “This appointment simply makes sense. leisure cargo is getting an outstanding access to the Turkish market – and we in turn – practically – to the world. Our already successfully running cooperation on the passenger side supports this.”
While leisure cargo sales staff is known for its outstanding and diligent servicing of relationships within the cargo agent community, joint calls of Dagmar Willeke, Head of leisure cargo Sales West, with the prominent partners of PEGASUS will undoubtedly result in additional business for the new team.
Guenter F. Mosler

Far more was it than a brainstorming. Solid plans have been made to jointly promote the leisure cargo GSA for Germany on behalf of PEGASUS Airlines. But at the same time it was a round table in an outstanding atmosphere and here is the document:
Ralf-Rainer Auslaender, spiritual father of leisure cargo and the company’s Managing Director, right, salutes and welcomes PEGASUS Airlines. From left we have Mr. Aydin Alpa, Vice President Cargo of PEGASUS, Dagmar Willeke, Sales Manager at leisure cargo for the Northwest of Germany and Mr. Fikret Yüksel, PEGASUS Director Germany and Switzerland

Again Relief Goods to Haiti

Visit of Aid Organization Human Plus in leisure cargo Facilities

In the morning of Friday of 5th February, 2010, leisure cargo could welcome a delegation of Human Plus at their headquarters at DUS airport.  Human Plus have their office in Nettetal near Dusseldorf and are engaged in worldwide humanitarian help. As they wanted to learn locally about the process of transporting their relief goods to Haiti they came to see us here in DUS.

With support of Air Berlin PR department, Karl-Hermann Hansen, and Uwe Lascheit, Manager Operation of Flughafen Dusseldorf Cargo GmbH, it was possible to visit the cargo hall and then to watch the loading of the relief goods into the AB Airbus A330 ready to fly to LRM Dominican Republic. From there a  helicopter would bring the donations to the respective areas of Haiti.

It must be said that everybody was happy about the smooth run of this morning. We could close the meeting with a cup of coffee in the leisure cargo conference room and had hereby the chance to learn something about the work of an aid organization while our guests in turn could see how the cargo business works.

Karin Rohnstock

Picture – left to right
Dietmar Brockes (Member of the Landtag North Rhine-Westphalia), Ansgar Mueller (Cargo Agent Export leisure cargo), Anestis Ioannidis (President and CEO Human Plus), Walter Grieger (Chairman Human Plus), Uwe Lascheit (Manager Operation Flughafen Dusseldorf Cargo GmbH), Karin Rohnstock (Office Management leisure cargo), Karl-Hermann Hansen (PR Air Berlin), Francesco Rizzo (Director Social Marketing Human Plus), Michael Hanné (Manager Operations Flughafen Dusseldorf GmbH)

Air Cargo Timeline To Haiti

“leisure Cargo and Air Berlin transported 100 tons of relief goods to Haiti.
On Monday the18th of January 2010, 32.5t and 25 doctors and aid helpers were uplifted on board AB1400.
The complete flight was part of a donation for the Haiti earthquake victims from Air Berlin, Air BP and Total Germany with 60t Jet fuel and the Düsseldorf International Airport, charging no flight handling costs.
Aboard the aircraft was also the organization Ein Herz für Kinder, Air Berlin crew, a doctor team and relief goods of humedica e.V., Kindernothilfe e.V., World Vision e.V. and LandsAid e.V. who had donated the 100t, 220cbm relief goods.
The Airbus A330-200 (Flight Number AB1400) was routed Düsseldorf-Puerto Plata. 8 PMC and 2 AKE with 32.5t were uplifted on schedule 1315 utc.
The complete logistic organization and flight responsibility had been handed over at 19:00, Friday evening to leisure Cargo, from Air Berlin.
As the export cargo agent on emergency duty, I was informed Friday afternoon that one flight might be planned for Monday with 30-35t.
Through Friday night into Saturday came phone calls as the shipment built and we immediately began to coordinate the repacking and staging for shipment of the relief goods.
Work continued non-stop from Friday into Saturday.
When even more cargo continued to be received at Düsseldorf and it was 02:00am Sunday morning with the telephone still ringing and total tonnage rinsing to more than 60t, I decided to send a first shipment on the normal passenger flights from Air Berlin to Punta Cana (PUJ) and Puerto Plata (POP).
Air Berlin Traffic Center quickly authorized the space and we slated 175t for the flight AB7440/17Jan DUS-POP and 10t for the flight AB7446/17jan DUS-PUJ.
With great assistance from Air Berlin Dispatch, Air Berlin Operations and the FDCG warehouse workers, 27.5t were sent on their way to the Dominican Republic a day ahead of time.
Everybody worked together, including getting us past the German-mandated law that bans Sunday truck driving.
After a few phone calls with the civil authorities a special agreement was put in place.
First flight off we worked from early morning until late in the evening repacking, loading and unloading of the trucks, the 100% screening, labeling and build-up in the leisure warehouse on scores of relief-bound ULDs for Haiti. Rest was either short breaks or cat naps as leisure Cargo employees answered the call for help giving their all to this relief goods shipment operation.
Between Sunday and Monday morning 72.5t were delivered to leisure DUS from three aid organizations.
As I planned the shipments, our workers labored on short rest and through meal time. Again after a very short rest, Monday morning had come, officially the big day.
As dawn broke Monday, word of our effort hit the press and we answered questions and professed our pleasure in being able to help others, although Monday was in reality just another work day no matter what the task had been during our busy weekend.
But I could tell that everyone was exhilarated and happy to help others in need.
I looked up in the sky and watched the A330-200 from Air Berlin take off and thought: I guess this is what they mean when saying All of us were very satisfied to be able to help . . . a little bit!.

Pegasus Airlines appoints Leisure Cargo as GSA Cargo Germany

Effective January 15, 2010 Pegasus Airlines has appointed leisure cargo, 100-% subsidiary of Air Berlin, headquartered at Dusseldorf airport as GSA Cargo for the sales territory of Germany. leisure cargo will focus on sales of belly capacities to and in transit via the carriers’ hub in Istanbul.

Pegasus Airlines having it’s headquarters at Istanbul Sabiha Gökcen airport is Turkey’s largest privately owned  airline and provides direct scheduled services from Germany to 5 destinations in Turkey while operating a fleet of 3 Airbus A319-100, 2 Airbus A320-200, 2 Boeing 737-400, 3 Boeing 737-500 and 14 Boeing 737-800.

Passenger services of Pegasus www.flypgs.com  and Air Berlin www.airberlin.com cooperate already closely through code share agreements since September 2009.  

leisure cargo will sell Pegasus capacities in conjunction with regular road feeder services from the German airports of CGN, BRE, DUS, FRA, HAJ, HAM, LEJ, MUC, STR, SXF, TXL to the Turkish airports of Adana (ADA) Ankara (ESB), Antalya (AYT), Istanbul (SAW), Izmir (ADB), Kayseri (ASR) and to Ercan /North Cyprus (ECN).

Mr. Aydin Alpa, Vice President Cargo of Pegasus Airlines comments: “The appointment of leisure cargo will largely enhance the distribution possibility of Pegasus’ cargo services through usage of the vast worldwide network of leisure cargo.”  

Mr. Ralf Auslaender, Managing Director leisure cargo remarks: “A cooperation between Pegasus and leisure cargo is an ideal complementation of our route network from Germany to Turkey. Previously winter services have been scaled down due tourist demand lacking. Now we are able to offer a wide spectrum of year round services to the cargo agent community.”

Karin Rohnstock