When TSA first announced its implementation policy we became aware of the ramifications or I should say three senior staff members did. President Peter Lamy immediately saw huge opportunity while all I could see was increased costs! In spite of my skepticism, Peter went ahead and brought two experts on board; Jeremy Vergara and Zachary Zemby. The three of them, with me as an observer, tackled the issues and challenges with schoolboy enthusiasm. Today, our screening facility is a credit to Peter’s vision and tenacity to get the job done. CII also owes a huge amount to both Zachary and Jeremy for their thousands of hours of research and subsequent implementation of the plans.

As the rest of the industry continues to be at sixes and sevens praying the TSA will postpone D Day, the CII teams in Los Angeles, Atlanta and New York are ready to pick up the mantle once August 1st arrives. There is no question our screening facility will become a major source of revenue/profit in the years ahead.

In the olden days freighter aircraft were narrow bodies. DC 8’s and 707’s. In the nineties, apart from the African continent, the 707 disappeared and today, apart from South America and that miserly outfit UPS, rarely a DC 8 is seen flying the skies. As we start our second decade of the new millennium, Connie Kalitta’s 747-100 will probably (UPS still has a few) among be the last to fly the skies. Our industry came to life because of the 747 freighter and nearly forty years on we remain in awe of its capabilities. Pete said this trip to that South Seas jewel, American Samoa, is the highlight of his twenty-seven career in transportation. He started with Flying Tigers in 1982 when they were replacing their DC 8’s with 747-100’s and in the very near future the only 747-100’s he will be seeing will be visiting their graveyard in the Mojave Desert.

Pete is a hero to us because his adventure started at midnight last Thursday boarding the aircraft at LAX arriving in HNL at 0600 hours to supervise the loading of relief goods for Tsunami ravaged Samoa to arrive. He arrived in Pago Pago at 2000 hours Friday night, assisted with the unloading of the aircraft and supervised the loading of 200,000lbs of gourmet pet food which Del Monte Foods had promised their customers would be delivered and on their shelves by this coming Friday. It took him just seven hours to turn the aircraft around and at 0300 Saturday morning in the middle of a tropical storm, Pete secured his seatbelt for the nine hour flight back to HNL. Today he is watching the last of the charter flight freight being loaded onto delivery trucks. Pete arrived a hero in Pago Pago with a plane load of much needed emergency goodies and returned a hero delivering thirty-two main decks of critically required pet food on time and with not one carton wet or damaged. Peter epitomizes and sets the bar for the can do spirit that exists within CII. For that, above everything else, Peter, you’re our hero!

It is amazing, unlike ocean, how a hundred tons or so of freight can make the difference between excess capacity and backlogs. In these tough times, it would stand to reason that an expensive imported out of season luxury, like table grapes, would meet with buyer resistance. Maybe Aussie isn’t in recession after all! In the meantime our regular freight has to play second fiddle to higher yielding perishables as those Aussies munch on Californian grapes between their vegemite sandwiches!