2015 is living up to our start of year projections of a very busy year, with plenty to talk about when it comes to ULD matters.
Preparations for the annual conference in Bangkok are proceeding well and it promises to be a very interesting and productive gathering. At the risk of repeating ourselves, let us remind you that this conference will be held alongside the Air Cargo Handling conference and we hope to create new connectivity with the handling sector through some joint sessions.
You can now view on our website the Conference Preliminary Program as well as the Spousal/Partners/Family Members Program sponsored by Cargo Network. This is a reminder that the Annual Conference is a privilege of the ULD CARE membership and if you are interested to attend, please contact louise.ladouceur@uldcare.com.
As previously announced, we are happy to confirm the IATA Fall ULD Panel meeting will be held in Bangkok immediately after the conclusion of the ULD CARE conference, Thursday afternoon and all day Friday, providing further opportunities for communication across the different sectors of the industry.
Just a few weeks after the Bangkok conference will be held on September 29-30 in Montreal the IATA ULD Regulatory Forum. This event provides an opportunity to sit together with the FAA and other regulators whose work and decisions may have a considerable effect on the way ULD operations are carried out. This is a particularly interesting given the likelihood of new rules and regulations in the aftermath of the National Air Cargo crash. We do hope that by the time this event comes around the revised version of AC 120-85 will have been published.
Back to some ULD CARE activities. By now we hope that all of you have visited the site of the SOS-ULD video. Meanwhile, considerable work is being done to complete the actions suggested at our workshops in Mainz last year. One of the headline requests was that it be easier to hold other parties in the industry accountable for the quality of their ULD operations. In the near future, you should find on the ULD CARE website a link to a set of new materials which are the beta versions of check forms that will enable anyone to carry out on the spot checks of:
- ULD transport on airport
- ULD Storage
- ULD inspection process
In making these beta versions available for use by anybody who cares to try them out, we are hoping that by the time we sit down in September we will have some feedback based on real-life use. This will enable us to both fine tune the existing three checklists and complete 4-5 more that will cover the complete spectrum of ULD operations. This is a first attempt at this type of document. It is made possible because of the existence of the IATA ULD regulations which clearly define the requirements for each type of activity.
And we have some other ideas in the pipeline for presentation in Bangkok.
Turning now to ULD CARE’s governance and stability, the election for new Board members for the next 3 years was conducted earlier this month and we are proud to announce the names of the new Board Members:
Airlines (there are still 2 vacant seats):
Air Canada: Urs Wiesendanger (President)
KLM: Frits Roukens
Cathay Pacific: Aldous Chung
Fedex: Emily Groce
Non-Airlines (poolers):
CHEP: Charles Drummond
Jettainer : Michael Popp
Non-Airlines (other than poolers):
Zodiac: Ulf Hartmann
Nordisk: Bob Rogers (Vice President)
Amsafe: Andy Davies
ACL Airshop: Jos Jacobsen
We offer our congratulations and welcome to the new expanded team.
On another positive note, we are delighted to announce that we do have an agreement for the signing of an MOU between IATA and ULD CARE. This agreement will really formalize the existing close collaboration between IATA and ULD CARE and will open up opportunities for further collaboration between the two organizations while ULD CARE can retain its ability to act independently.
Finally, we would like to bring your attention to the Flying Typers’s newsletter of June 18, 2015. It came as a nice surprise and we would like to share it with you. Follow this link and go to the 4th article titled: ULDs Get No Respect.
This will be our last newsletter before the summer holidays ( at least for those whose holidays typically fall in the July/August period) so we take this opportunity to wish everybody a good break and look forward to seeing a record-breaking attendance in Bangkok.
Now for this month’s featured articles:
This edition of the newsletter contains articles containing information on to quite commonly used but often misunderstood accessories for pallets.
These are pallet wings and pallet couplers.
Pallet Wings – Adding extra volume to lower deck loads
Pallet extenders or “wings”, as they are commonly called, have been in use for many years, providing an effective method to increase the useable volume of pallets in lower deck positions. Generally available for use on any size of pallet, these are most commonly used on PAG/PMC and also PKC (A320) pallets.
In’s and Out’s of Pallet Couplers
Many of our readers may at some time or other have caused to use one or both of these accessories but you may also wish to consider how well-informed you are about the correct operational procedures when it comes to these items-we hope the articles will rectify any such knowledge deficiencies.
Checking a ULD for damage
The third article addresses inspection of ULD. We covered this to some extent in an earlier newsletter on the use of the IATA ODLN but this is such an important subject that there can be no harm in going over old ground. The focus of this article is primarily on how to go about inspecting a container or pallet or net in an efficient, time affective manner.
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