DAY 1

I flew out to Shanghai the day before the opening of the Air Cargo China show. I was met at the Pudong International Airport for an afternoon get-together with the Shanghai Airport Authority, accompanied by current Regional Head of Cargo Jenny He, our incoming Head of Cargo Customer Experience and Service Development Stellar Wang and Cargo Services Manager Ricky Jiang.

We had a good, productive meeting. There’s positive support for the rebuilding of our flights, and the Authority wants to work with us to develop IATA ONE Record technologies and processes. There’s also potential for more partnership on e-commerce shipments, with particular reference to the forthcoming peak season. While some of the traditional manufacturing markets for air cargo in the Chinese Mainland are a bit softer, e-commerce demand remains very strong, so we discussed ways of maximising our capacity to carry more e-commerce from Shanghai via Hong Kong. This was to become something of a theme at the show the next day, and that reflects current market conditions.

Following on from that, I visited our Cargo Service Delivery team at the airport. This is an incredibly talented and dedicated team who really went the extra mile to keep our operations running for our customers during the pandemic, and it was a pleasure to catch up with them again. We all met with the wider cargo team for dinner in town later that evening, where we toasted our achievements.

DAY 2

It’s showtime. This was the first time we’ve exhibited at Air Cargo China. We had a good story to tell about our brand and our vision to become the world’s best air-cargo carrier. Air Cargo China is the biggest logistics event in the Chinese Mainland and this was the first edition since the pandemic. Excitement and anticipation were high, especially with the market so buoyant and optimism increasing ahead of the peak. That excitement could only rise when you saw the great work that our marketing team had done, not only with an impactful, interactive and spectacular exhibition stand, but also with our take-over of the adjacent metro station and the exhibition of our We Know How campaign billboards.

The day featured a number of media interviews, including with Global Times, China Daily, CCTV and the Shanghai Media Group. The main themes for the interviews were about how Cathay Cargo is helping to lead the digitisation changes the industry needs, and how we are responding to the growth of e-commerce – and trying to work out how long it will last. I get the sense that the media has been impressed with our freighter network and passenger belly frequencies – which reflects that we are proudly part of China!

I have been impressed with the international feel of this very busy event. There’s been a real buzz about the place, particularly at our stand, which looks magnificent. We’ve used gamification to get people to learn about our special shipment solutions, infrastructure and services, which I think sets us apart from others – I’ve never seen queues like this for a booth at previous events. I take that to be a positive sign of the interest in and growth momentum of air cargo in this part of the world.

At the stand, it’s great to see large numbers of customers and suppliers stopping by to learn about our brand, with brisk business being done. There was a full schedule for our sales teams over the course of the two days, with many of the discussions about how they can access increased capacity as our network grows with the expansion of our wide-body network and frequencies across the world. There were also questions about how we can accommodate more e-commerce, during our peak season, to the US and to Europe from all parts of China, and how we might need to redeploy some capacity and add more freighters in certain weeks to try and secure the optimal loads that we want for that business.

While I lost count of the number of people asking for more space, there were also conversations about sustainability and our Corporate Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) Programme and how they might join, along with real interest in our intermodal connections to the Greater Bay Area for exports and imports, which is a focus for us. It’s also been good to get some really valuable customer feedback about the quality of handling with our specialist solutions.

DAY 2: the AFLAS Awards 

After a busy day around the exhibition, it was nice to be within the quieter surrounds of the Waldorf Astoria for the 2024 Asian Freight, Logistics and Supply Chain (AFLAS) Awards. I’m delighted that our team was recognised as Best Green Air Cargo Carrier, which reflects our commitment to SAF development and sustainable cargo operations both at an airline level and with the Cathay Cargo Terminal.

We celebrated at a table we hosted, attended by senior representatives from the Shanghai Airport Authority and our top cargo agency customers in Shanghai.

It was a rewarding conclusion to few very busy days that showed Cathay Cargo at its best.