Hi everyone. So as we start to wrap up 2023, we met with some of our airline partners to see how they found the year and see what their predictions were for 2024. So sit back and enjoy. So we've got Miguel Rodriguez Moreno here who is Head of Cargo Products at Qatar Airways. -Hi, Miguel. -Hello, Catherine. How are you? -I'm good. Thank you. How are you? -Yeah. Very good. Very excited to be -here with you today. -That's fantastic. And we're so happy to have you here with us. We've got Indy Bolina, who is Managing Director, Global Head of Sales at American Airlines Cargo. So hi Indy, it's great to have you here. -Thanks. Thanks for having me. -You're very welcome for our next guest, we've got Manu Jacobs, who is Managing Director, Specialty Products at United Airlines. Hi, Manu. It's great to have you here with us. -Good morning. Happy to be here. -We've got Lauren Stolt, who is Global Head of Pharmaceutical Logistics at air France-KLM Martinair Cargo. So hi, Lauren. It's great to -have you here. -Hi. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be -here. -Fantastic. So what we've been doing, is we've been speaking to a few of our airline partners to see what they thought of 2023, and to look ahead a little bit, into 2024, and we see what we think might be coming up for the industry. So if we kick off, then so from your perspective, what are the key drivers in the market at the moment? Yeah. So I think uh, what we are seeing, the major thing that we are seeing right now is that there is more capacity right now than there is demand, which we were not faced with a couple of years ago with the pandemic. Obviously it was the reverse. So then on the pharmaceutical side, we had a huge demand and obviously the pricing went up. Now we see there's more on a passenger side. On the demand side, we have a lot more belly capacity coming in, which means that we have a lot more capacity to sell and the demand is down. So it's not so much down on the pharmaceutical industry, but definitely on all other products, which means there's more pressure on the pharmaceutical side, including on the pricing. So that's quite a challenge. We are also trying to to mitigate as much as possible in the market where you start seeing a decline in the pricing. On top of that, I think there's a lot more regulatory changes. The ICS2 was implemented this year, which also has consequences on our product and trying to maintain the compliance with regards to all the products that we moved, as well as maintaining the cool chain. And I think one of the other things that is relevant for 23, but also moving forward is the digital advancements. So you see on both the patient care as well as on the logistics side, there's a lot more need for track and trace and direct temperature control. So these are all the things that we see as key drivers for the past year. Yeah. And of course, on the pharma side, I think you will see a lot more mergers and acquisitions. So that means that you're having more standardization of the products, but a lot more pressure -from from these mergers. -Yeah, absolutely. So I think the first thing to start off is, you know, American Airlines were a North American based carrier. And so from our perspective, first and foremost, we've seen quite a lot of resilience in our region. We've had the benefit of moving a lot of cargo, even just within the domestic US. But thanks to our vast network throughout multiple international locations, even at the beginning of the pandemic, our lanes were in strong demand. And those routes from Latin America and Europe have remained strong. Obviously, 2023 has been a year of significant correction. We saw through the pandemic, this shift in supply and demand with a lot of demand, with limited supply, particularly with a lot of passenger carriers grounded. But through 2023, as we've seen a lot of those aircrafts get back up in the air. There's been a lot of capacity in the market. So as a result, we've seen a decline in yields. We've seen a lot of excess capacity in the market and we've seen what I would say a return to somewhat normalcy. So it's been certainly a turbulent time in the industry, but I think it was inevitable that we would get back to what is more of a normal state in the air freight industry right now. Okay, I think I think we saw a couple of things. The need for technology, transparency, call it visibility. And of course, we also notice, and this is ongoing and ongoing discussion on a potential shift from from air to ocean for cost reasons. And in this post Covid environment, we see a lot of pressure from the procurement side of the pharma companies. However, we also noticed recently an uptick in demand for capacity. Cargo capacities are filling up rapidly and especially transatlantic. The market is really strong right now. And so, this year has been quite a challenging and interesting year for the air cargo industry. We come obviously from a period of unprecedented issues with the Covid disruption and a lot of capacity issues and slowly the capacity has been returning to the markets globally, mainly driven by the restoration of the passenger networks and also the introduction of more freighter operations of different airlines. So in that sense still, we see challenges in the capacity outlook. We are still not fully recovered in terms of availability in the market or that would depend sometimes in between regions, how the capacity has recovered. And obviously that pushes now a lot of pressure in the yields and also in the customer requests on what levels we need to be at in order to remain competitive. So definitely challenging and interesting year. And, we anticipate that next year is not going to be any different. We're going to still see challenges ahead of us also with potential conflicts arising around the world where which will have or have already an impact in the logistics supply chain. So from our side, we remain or we try to remain competitive. We try to remain stable and reliable partner for our customers and make sure that we deliver on, on our promise with our cargo -products. -Fantastic. So other than obviously capacity issues and recovery from Covid in 2023. Have there been any other challenges or maybe some new opportunities in this year that you've seen? Indeed. I mean, for us it's been a great year in terms of product development. So we have, relaunched our core portfolio of product offering. We did in particular, for this topic, our pharma product  back in April ahead of the Logipharma event in Lyon, where we introduced new subcategories of the pharma offering to cater to the new developments in the industry to cater to cell and gene therapies, critical shipments, inclusion of all the advanced solutions that are in the market for cool chain protection, whether it's active containers or advanced passive solutions. And also introducing a subcategory for all that healthcare segment which doesn't require temperature control. Whether it's medical devices, equipment or other type of healthcare material that needs to be transported still with some or with GDP compliance however, not requiring temperature control. So we have expanded our portfolio of offering. And it's been quite an interesting challenge as well for the team to obviously, that requires a lot of alignment from the commercial teams, from the operations teams, from the compliance teams,  policies and procedures. There's a lot of teamwork to make it work. And, and yeah, we've seen already positive results in the new categories that we have launched. So, uh, it has -been positively received by the market. -Yeah. So it seems like it's a busy -year then this year for you guys. -Quite busy. Quite busy, to be honest. -Yes. -Yeah. Excellent question. I think the, uh, professionally the big challenge was and still is the huge number of RFPs, RFQ that were pumped in in the market. A market, by the way, that was constantly evolving. So from a United perspective, I think very hard to keep up and very hard to be sharp on the different pricing, uh, exercises due to the limited timeframes allowed and the magnitude of some of the RFCs, I sometimes have the impression that it is more a call it transactional race against the clock, trying to fill in a Excel sales versus a strategic and long term approach. Conversation as partners. Of course, at the same time, this created the opportunities as well. But it's a matter to me of prioritizing and being focused and and following strategic objectives. Another great opportunity, especially for United is our massive fleet expansion. So a lot of new routes coming up and also the opening up again of of China. Let's not forget, to mention the biggest challenge, um, let's call it politely, uh, some geopolitical, unstable situations in specific regions in the world. I mean, completely disrupting the supply chain and and even more importantly, impacting people's lives. Yeah. Absolutely. Definitely. It's lots of sort of finding different ways of working this year then I guess? Yes, I think it's all about creating long term, uh, partnerships and yeah, hoping let's say that the geopolitical, geopolitical situation, I mean, goes away very rapidly. -Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. -I think on the opportunities side. So obviously we have more capacity. So we look to see where is the demand at the moment. Uh, and then we try to follow suit on that. So we have our partnerships with Delta Virgin and recently since April our strategic partnership with CMA, CGM. So we look to see where's the demand. And together with our partners, we try to make sure that we increase on our capacity on our specific routes. And I think Raleigh is one of the latest ones which was in which we've just started in the winter network, and we do see an increase in demand for Raleigh. So that's really good. So we try to adapt with the changes that are in the pharmaceutical market, as well as looking after our our own digital tools. We've got quite a few epics running, not completely, uh, finished, -but uh, we'll get in there. -Yeah. Great. And, and I think that's something that that's come up in a few of these conversations is that particularly this year and post-Covid is we've had to change the way we work and look at things slightly differently. -Absolutely. Absolutely. -Yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I think the first thing is being incredibly nimble and customer centric. Uh, customers are expecting airlines and carriers to be able to provide solutions that perhaps were not as innovative, pre-pandemic. We've certainly seen a big uptick in some of our premium products. So we think through the pandemic, the transportation of vaccines and medicines and pharmaceuticals. And so we've invested heavily in our pharma facility in Philadelphia. So that is a state of the art facility. It really opens up the northeast pharmaceutical corridor for the entire US. We have a lot of stations at our headquarters here at Dallas, Philadelphia, our CEIV certified. We've seen, tremendous demand for those respective lanes. We've also seen quite a great opportunity to move the entire industry into what I call the modern mindset. A lot of focus around digitalization and transformation, upgrading our systems to ensure that we are now able to provide digital rates on platforms, making it easier to do business for us. So whilst, you know, I think, a saying that our CEO mentioned to me, which really has, has sort of been embedded is "do not waste a good crisis". And so during a good crisis, I love that there are opportunities to, to really do things that we perhaps as an industry, hadn't done before. And I think we're now reaping the benefits of of moving the -industry forward in a more modern mindset. -Mm. Yeah. That's great. That's really interesting. Interesting to hear as well. So in terms of what's coming next, then. So are there any kind of trends that you foresee for next year or any particular focuses for -2024? -I think we're gonna, it will continue to be a somewhat challenging environment in 2024 a lot of the supply chain cycle is related to macroeconomics. If we think about what's happening in the, in the economy right now, that recession still potentially looms. Will consumer spend be at the same pace? I think we are going to see the first half of next year still on the same trajectory as 2023, which is moving to that normalcy, perhaps still a decline in rates and yield. Nonetheless, I do also think it's a great opportunity to move forward with some of the innovative initiatives a lot of carriers and forwarders have today. So if we think about sustainability as an example, several years ago, a lot of folks came out and very quickly put some ambitious goals for 2030 and 2050, that's going to very quickly creep upon us. And so if we think about reducing our environmental footprint with sustainable aviation fuel, investing in carbon reduction technology, if we think about sustainable business practices. So one of the things we've done here at American Airlines is actually replace a lot of our packaging on our freight with biodegradable plastics. So we are now using in all of our major hubs, plastic, which biodegrade within ten years, saving millions of plastic bottles. So I think as we go into 2024, there's going to be continue to be a huge focus on the market correcting itself, plus a lot of practices around sustainability. Additionally, continued work in the digital transformation space. -Yeah. -Great. Well, from a United perspective and again, um, I think our focus is on long term reliable and also. Sustainable partnerships. I think the the industry learned over the last couple of years that we need to be agile and scalable in this ever changing and volatile environment. We know, let's say that in the end, we all need to collaborate, to work together as partners to make the supply chain work. And I believe, let's say technology and connectivity will also be important drivers in the year and in the years to come. Uh, well, sustainability is a big one. So we obviously going to look at that and focus on that in '24. As I mentioned, we also have some epics running on the digitalization side on the real time tracking. Uh, so those are all the things that we're focusing on for next year. We tried this year. We started and I think one of the challenges that we face there, and one of the things that we need to focus on next year, that you see a lot more demand for quality. But as I said, a lot more pressure on the pricing as well. So if you're going to start commodities in the pharmaceutical industry and demanding lower prices, I think yes, we're trying to focus and grow on our digitalization, but we also need to make sure that the product runs, in parallel with that. So that is the focus. I'm trying to see if we can get some or we're trying to try and see if we can get some kind of market stability, in terms of pricing, so that we can put a lot more focus on our digital tools that we can offer. SAF is a very important one. Packaging is another one. We're looking at more sustainable packaging. We're working with our container suppliers, including yourselves in terms of the new containers. So all these kind of things is what we want to focus on in 24. Um, and in the first quarter of next year, we also looking at our cool chain facilities within our hubs of Amsterdam and Paris, because we see with the pharmaceutical demand the way it is now, at about 5% a year, we don't have enough facilities we increase this year, but we still need a more increase for the demand for next year. Yeah. Great. -So a busy year ahead then for you guys. -Yes. And next year we also will start again with our CEIV recertification. So it's going to -be a busy year. -Yeah I think more likely into the next year we're going to see more, increase in our case increase of frequencies opening. We keep opening new destinations to those markets where it makes sense for us. We keep working on the development of our product portfolio. We didn't stop in April launching or relaunching our pharma product, but we have been working extensively inrelaunching or launching new products. The latest product that we launched recently was secured lift for the transportation of valuables and vulnerable goods. We are launching these days, our drive, uh, product for the transportation of, uh, automobiles and auto parts. And we will continue offering more solutions and more tailor made, kind of concepts to our customers in the coming months. So yeah, the product development will continue. And also, we are working closely with the industry in forums like the IATA LAPB,  Healthcare Working Group and perishables, Cargo Working Group to make sure that the standards are aligned to the latest developments and requirements from the regulators. We are also working very closely with our customers to show our capabilities and ensuring that the supply chain is robust and safe from end to end. So there's still a lot of work to do and, a lot of nice initiatives for the coming year. And of course, we're going to see each other in industry gatherings like, Logpharma again next year in April in Lyon and other events throughout the year. So definitely a lot of opportunities -ahead of us. -Yeah, fantastic and good that there's always more work to do. We never get to relax in this -industry. -Never a dull day. So that's it from us. The only thing left to say is, again, a huge thank you to all of our partners for joining us for the interviews, and we look forward to seeing you all next year.