The World Trade Center Miami welcomes you to Air Cargo Americas News, offering you updates from the industry and useful information on the 20th year of the Air Cargo Americas Conference and Exhibition.

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NEWS IN THE AMERICAS

• FedEx Anticipates Improved Business Conditions in Latin America by Mike Seemuth
• Arrow Cargo Expands Its 757 Fleet Ahead of Fourth Quarter by Mike Seemuth
• UPS Set for Big Delivery of Boeing 767s
• Germany’s Lufthansa Cargo Expands Service to the Americas
• Italian Carrier Cargoitalia Set to Launch Service to North America
• Synergex Expands Into Freight Forwarding in Mexico and Colombia

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FedEx Anticipates Improved Business Conditions in Latin America by Mike Seemuth
Integrated shipping giant Federal Express anticipates that business conditions in Brazil and other parts of Latin America will improve in the second half of the year, compared to the January-June period, as the worldwide air cargo market recovers.

“We are optimistic,” said Salil Chari, FedEx managing director of marketing, Latin America and the Caribbean. “We believe we are bumping along at the bottom. Our chief economist, Gene Huang, his prediction is that the fourth quarter is when we’ll see a material up-tick in business conditions globally.” Among the nations of Latin America, “Brazil and Mexico are the biggest economies, and those are the most important for us,” Chari said during an interview.

The largest air cargo market in Latin America, Brazil is a major market for FedEx. From its air operations base in Memphis, Tennessee, FedEx operates two daily freighter flights, one with MD-11 or DC-10 aircraft and the other with a Boeing 727, to serve the Viracopas airport near Sao Paulo, Brazil, and other destinations in the southern cone of South America, including Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Santiago, Chile.

“We are committed to the Brazilian market,” Chari said. “We’re actively looking at opportunities that are out there, and as they come up, we go after those ... We’re looking forward to the second half of the year.” He said companies increasingly are “looking at business development opportunities in Latin American countries and looking to make Brazil, more and more, a distribution hub or a manufacturing hub for other countries in Latin America.”

FedEx operates in close coordination with Brazil’s customs agency to ensure the smooth flow of shipments into the country. “We’re pretty happy with how we work with customs in Brazil,” Chari said. “We actively partner with them to understand what their needs are and, ultimately, to meet the needs of our customers. I believe we have a really good relationship.”

Arrow Cargo Expands Its 757 Fleet Ahead of Fourth Quarter by Mike Seemuth
Arrow Cargo acquired three Boeing 757 freighters in the first half of the year, and the Miami-based airline expects to acquire two more 757s before the start of the seasonally strong fourth quarter of the calendar year.

Arrow expects to have a fleet of five 757 freighters by “sometime in September,” said Patrice Robinet, general counsel of Arrow Cargo, said in an interview. In the first half of the year, Arrow leased two 757s from an affiliate of its principal owner, New York-based investment firm MatlinPatterson, and a third 757 from AWAS Aviation, which has an office in Miami.

Robinet said Arrow also has four DC-10 freighters, down from six at the end of last year, and will keep the size of its DC-10 fleet unchanged for the foreseeable future. “The 757s are not a replacement for the DC 10s,” he said. Arrow also has disposed of the lone DC-8 freighter it was operating at the beginning of 2009.

Looking beyond this year, Arrow expects eventually to retire and replace its DC 10 freighters. “The DC 10s will probably have a life of three, four years, give or take, and then they will become uneconomical, as the DC 8s did,” Robinet said. “I suspect we’ll start looking down the line and decide where we’re going to go after the DC 10s ... MatlinPatterson’s got an order for some A330s,” but it’s too early to tell “whether that’s the aircraft we want to bring into Arrow or we’ll want to look into another aircraft type, like a 767.”

UPS Set for Big Delivery of Boeing 767s
Integrated shipping company UPS is set to take delivery of the first of more than two dozen Boeing 767 freighters that will add both capacity and flexibility to the carrier’s operations.

Atlanta-based UPS soon will take delivery of the first of 27 Boeing 767s it is adding its fleet. The integrated land-air carrier also has four of the larger model Boeing 747s on order. By October, UPS expects to have the first and second of the 27 Boeing 767s that it has ordered.

The Courier-Journal newspaper in Louisville, Kentucky, reported that the 767 “is versatile enough for domestic runs or long hauls across the Pacific.”

Additional deliveries of 767s will occur in phases through 2012, and by then, UPS expects to have 59 of them. The Courier-Journal reported that UPS now has 75 Boeing 757 aircraft, making it the most common model in the carrier’s fleet of freighters.

UPS has mostly Boeing 757 freighters deployed for air cargo service to Latin America. http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090725/BUSINESS/907250332/UPS-Airlines-beginning-to-enhance-global-fleet

Germany’s Lufthansa Cargo Expands Service to the Americas
Germany-based Lufthansa Cargo has expanded its freighter service to North America and South America.

Lufthansa Cargo now has daily freighter service to the Viracopas airport near Sao Paulo, Brazil, with continuing service options to the Brazilian city of Curitiba and to Bogota, Colombia.

Lufthansa Cargo also has begun offering weekly freighter service from Frankfurt, Germany, to Guadalajara, Mexico, via the Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas, area.

The German carrier also is operating twice weekly freighter flights from Frankfurt to Seattle, Washington, via Los Angeles, California.http://www.transportintelligence.com/news/lufthansa-cargo-announces-new-routes-in-america-and-europe/5439

Italian Carrier Cargoitalia Set to Launch Service to North America
A new Italian air cargo carrier called Cargoitalia has selected its general sales and service agents for launch markets in North America, the Middle East and Asia.

In late summer, Cargoitalia was in the process of acquiring its first planes, three of the MD-11 freighter aircraft, and preparing to commence operations Sept. 9 with service from Milan, Italy, to Hong Kong. On Sept. 19, Cargoitalia expects to initiate twice weekly flights from Milan to New York City and Toronto, with continuing service from Toronto via Milan to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. News source Arabian Supply Chain also reported August 9 that Cargoitalia “has international operations in Mexico, Jamaica and the Dominican Republic.”

Cargoitalia has appointed Heavyweight Air Express as its general sales and service agent in the United States. http://www.arabiansupplychain.com/article-2800-cargoitalia_selects_launch_market_gssas/

Synergex Expands Into Freight Forwarding in Mexico and Colombia
Synergex, a Canadian supplier of supply-chain services, announced plans to commence freight forwarding operations in Mexico, Colombia and other Latin American markets.

Ontario-based Synergex reported August 6 that it obtained freight forwarding operating licenses in Mexico and Colombia, applied for such licensing in Chile, and may add Argentina and Brazil as well.

“We believe that our freight forwarding operations in Latin America will enhance our profitability,” said David Aiello, president and chief executive officer of Synergex. “We are building our Latin American 3PL infrastructure and recruiting local professionals who possess the strengths and skills that have built our Canadian freight forwarding business from our company’s origin.”

Listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under ticker symbol SYX, Synergex plans to operate out of the Bogota Free Trade Zone in Bogota, Colombia. In a company statement Synergex described the Bogota facility as “one of the most competitive free trade zones in Latin America, offering companies a single 15 percent income tax rate and the ability to sell in the local market without VAT [value added tax] and customs duties.”

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Synergex-Corporation-TSX-SYX-1027224.html