Building on the success of the global series the World Mail, Express & Air Cargo Expo, brought together a meeting of leading figures from different parts of the industry in Dubai last week.

The theme of the conference was one market, one industry and Paul Jackson, Chairman of Triangle Management Services, the organisers, said “people needed to ‘think outside of the box’. Too many sectors of the logistics chain operate in silos but, just like the world, the customer is changing”. He added “We discovered that mail, express and air cargo does mix!”

The presentations and discussions confirmed that there were large numbers of overlap opportunities between the emerging post offices, express carriers, freight forwarders and airlines. Some of the highlights of the two day conference were:

Airmail is the poor relation

Ram Menen, Senior Vice President, Cargo, Emirates, stated that current relationships between the airlines and post offices were unsatisfactory. With the decline of letters and the increase in parcels through growing e-commerce, revenue yields based on weight were not reaching half that of air cargo. He said there is not even a common IATA procedures manual and tracking and tracing is way behind that offered by the integrators.

Air cargo and air freight forwarders

Robert Frei, Head of Corporate Development of Panalpina was extremely forthright, stating that airlines need to simplify their products and pricing. In discussion with Ram Menen, he agreed that more transparency of pricing would be a good thing for the industry. Frei also said that major forwarders are now becoming contract logistics managers and there is a need to reduce the duplication of effort between them and the airline operations.

GSA/Ground Handling Agents

Nick van der Weide, VP Marketing and Sales, European Cargo Services highlighted the growing maturity of the network GSA and said that they now purchase capacity on a guaranteed basis from six airlines. He saw this as a growing trend. Ludwig Bertsch, Executive VP, Corporate Services, Swissport Cargo Services felt that it would not be long before ground handling agents involved themselves in GSA work.

Express services

The express industry was well represented and was concerned most of all about the 10% tax in Dubai on courier sales which are estimated at US$10 million per year. Emirates Post does not pay this for its courier product and the market is distorted unfairly, said Hamdi Osman, VP Middle East/Indian Sub Continent, FedEx. HE Sultan Saeed Al Mansoori, Minister of Communications, promised to review the matter.

Other issues in express were the need for local sponsorship and the monopolies of the regional post offices, particularly as they entered into the courier markets.

Free trade

Several senior executives across the industry spectrum responded positively to Fadi Ghadour, President and CEO of regional number one courier/freight forwarder, Aramex, when he called for an industry-wide group to encourage the development of efficient logistics by overcoming the anomalies, particularly for intra-Arab trade.

Mail

Abdulla Al Daboos, Director General, Emirates Post, said that he expected Emirates Post to develop into a one stop shop business, possibly even operating its own aircraft/airline in the not too distant future.

Finally, Daboos said that he would not be surprised to see global post offices wanting to invest in Emirates Post who will be placing 40% of its stock to the public within the next year.


The combined conference and exhibition was an outstanding success, attended by more than 400 visitors and delegates. Triangle and Streamline are planning to repeat the event at the same time next year – dates to be announced shortly.
 

Notes to the Editor

• The Middle East event, jointly organised by Triangle Management Services and Streamline Marketing, took place at the Dubai International Convention Centre on 1-2 March 2005

• Triangle Management Services, based in the UK, has been organising the World Mail & Express (WMX) event since 1988

• 2005 will also see WMX events in Europe and America and Mail and Express Summits in the UK

• The host sponsor of the event was Emirates Post, supported by Aramex and DHL

• For further information please contact: Paul.Trott@triangle.eu.com

• Please go to www.triangle.eu.com for further details