Letter from Lothar - March inSight

Welcome to our first edition of inSight for 2023.

At the time of writing these lines, already three months of the year have passed. It seems that time is racing by as quickly as last year.

The Cargo iQ management team and the members enjoyed very successful Working Group sessions in January 2023. A total of 13 different sub-working group meetings took place. Members have worked very hard to continue the important projects we have identified as our focus and bring them a step further to conclusion. We even managed to start a new initiative, which will close some holes in the planning of the Door-2-Door movements at house air waybill level. No doubt additional work must be done, which will happen by means of virtual meetings.

But I am happy to repeat my sincere and huge THANK YOU to the team of Etihad Airways. They helped to make our working group a success with their sponsorship and arrangements for a professional working environment.

I was invited to participate in a board meeting of the Airforwarders Association (AfA) in Nashville, Tennessee. AfA was very interested to learn more about Cargo iQ and I gave them a comprehensive presentation of our organization and our activities. Further contact will be maintained and followed up on.

The Air Cargo Africa conference took place this year in Johannesburg. We made a large number of interesting new contacts and were invited to participate in a panel discussion on the subject of digitalization and the challenges in adopting the new way of doing business. In conclusion, the panel agreed that the early adopters will be the most successful enterprises in the future, as digitalization also means change management and doing things differently – without being held back by those who have done it the same way for 40 years and never changed.

The Air Cargo Africa Awards night was one of the highlights. I was proud to be asked to hand over the award for the winner of "Best African Airline" to Ethiopian Airlines for their excellent service offering to the industry. Runner-up was Kenya Airways. It is noteworthy that both airlines are members of Cargo iQ and have placed quality, quality management, and continuous improvement very high on their priority list.

My sincere congratulations to both airlines and to all other winners.

We are already planning our participation at the IATA World Cargo Symposium taking place from 25th to 27th April 2023 in Istanbul, and will hold our Cargo iQ Board Meeting the day before on the 24th April and our AGM on the 28th April. As usual, during the AGM we will elect new Board Members.

If you would like to serve as a Board member yourself or to propose a different person, please feel free to do so by sending a short message to myself at moehlel@iata.org. We will be in touch to discuss further details.

While we are in Istanbul, we will also hold one of our Cargo iQ training seminars, hosted by Turkish Airlines. If you would like to know more about the training and join a session in the future, please register with Laura Rodriguez (rodriguezl@iata.org) and we will notify you of upcoming training sessions.

I do hope that you enjoy reading this newsletter and I am looking forward to seeing you in Istanbul. Until then, all the best.