What a great job the new regime has accomplished. From being virtually exclusive, it has become totally inclusive. Today IATA executives are a smart and much focused lot who work with their sleeves rolled up, not like their predecessors, who in the main appeared to be products of Oxford and Cambridge Universities with that old fashioned “civil service” appearance and mentality. Here is CII, a very small forwarder by world standards and at least three times a week I receive communications, not only from the local CNS, but guess what? From Geneva also! IATA has access to mountains of information which is most helpful to our business and it is to their credit they wish to share their knowledge in a very useful way.

Every week I receive a précis of what is going within the airline industry from their Chief Economist. Monthly I am fed a more detailed version including graphs and charts which are presented in such a manner I don’t need to be a Ph.D. to understand the contents. I am still in awe from a cargo agent perspective how they have grabbed hold of Cargo 2000 and reinvented the program. I am hooked on the value of this initiative and believe all forwarders should be participants. I admire IATA’s passion attached to making airfreight a paperless society through E-Freight. Once this becomes the norm, it creates huge benefits for airlines and forwarders and draws the industry closer together.

Thank goodness in these dark times, we have an industry body that projects rays of sunshine that tell us we truly do have a great future.

Now international travel is on a huge decline, the future looks bleak for over half the world’s carriers. Instead of mergers like KLM and Air France, Lufthansa and British Midland most of the terminally ill carriers will simply shut shop. Mojave Desert, already overflowing with unwanted planes will within a couple of years be overflowing with repossessed aircraft from the Asian and African continents. There will be more airline people joining the dole queue than from the auto industry! My thoughts are before this recession is over the number of carriers still operating will be at least halved from the boom times of post 9/11.

Surviving airlines hoping that with less competition they will able to hike the prices will be in for a rude awakening. The western world, especially America will only contemplate travel if the price is right. No more banging a $12,000 family vacation onto the plastic card anymore and spending two years paying it off at 15.99% compounded interest. We will follow the Chinese and all our spending decisions will be based upon three basic considerations; price, price and price.

As for cargo, there may some markets not well serviced by freighters or competing airlines, where the demand will dictate pricing levels, but overall, most passenger carriers will continue to “drop their pants” because they absolutely need the incremental revenue that cargo brings. Some forwarder mentioned to us the other day he received a minus rate into Asia! Believe that! I do because Asian carriers are truly hurting and will for a long time. They can maintain the fuel surcharge at inflated levels but are will to discount that in order to move freight at a zero rate! Talk about how the world has been moving to the lowest common denominator. Who knows, the barter system of the Stone Age may return as the bargaining tool to do business.