As the air cargo industry starts to revive one company is already confident about what the future holds. “There is a good momentum right now for further growth,” Carsten Hernig, managing director, Jettainer GmbH told Payload Asia.
Jettainer’s business is outsourcing. Currently it fully owns, manages and maintains some 90,000 pallets and containers for 18 airline customers and has a global network consisting of approximately 500 stations at more than 450 airports.
Customers are provided with dedicated units featuring the airline’s branding. Interestingly this carrier branding – which is not offered by its competitors – has a spin-off benefity other than building brand-awareness. These include easy identification of ULDs and the fact that ULDs are generally being treated more carefully by personnel involved in the ground handling process as they feel greater responsibility for equipment of a particular airline than for anonymous equipment, Hernig said. This has the obvious benefits of significantly reducing repair costs caused by handling errors.
Jettainer also offers a state-of-the-art in-house IT system. ‘Jettware’ provides reliable web-based IT tools and therefore allows efficient management of the entire ULD fleet. Another tool ‘Management Cockpit’ allows customers to supervise ensuring the system’s transparency.
What is interesting is that this is just seemingly the beginning.
Outsouring potential
“So far, only 15 per cent of the global airlines operating aircraft types equipped with pallets and containers have outsourced their ULD management either to us or the competition. According to this, we do see huge potential in expanding our business in the framework of healthy market conditions, especially as various airlines are actively showing interest in our services,” Hernig said. It’s a case of mutual interests being profitably reconciled.
Hernig’s argument is outsourcing of ULD management is one of the last opportunities for airlines to increase efficiency and reduce cost. Arguments about that to the side what Jettainer offers is both reducing the ULD fleet of an airline as well as the ULD management cost by 20 to 25 per cent while guaranteeing 100 per cent availability.
“Carriers do not only benefit from our global network and the availability synergies going along with that, but for example also from no longer owning the assets as Jettainer takes over the whole stock of units upon the start of the contract, no matter how many of them will be used later on. This goes along with a transformation from fixed into variable cost,” said Hernig.
Typically, he says, clients opt for the a full service package in order to entirely benefit from the convenient ‘one stop shopping’ concept and to successfully collaborate with on a long term scale. But not all are long-term customers he notes.
“Airlines that have not yet signed a ULD management contract with us are able to make use of JettLease, our short term leasing product for ULD emergencies.”
Innovation
Innovation and product safety are key elements of Jettainer’s business and by closely collaborating with recognised institutes for material testing, as well various ULD manufacturers, the company says it continuously works on creating new innovations such as the introduction of new lightweight units. Hernig also noted that the growing interest in We are getting more and more interest in GPS tracking solutions of ULDs so the device will proactively send its position and status.
“This will, again, speed up ULD turnover and save time and effort to generate manual inventories. We had a project called ‘DyCoNet some years ago, in cooperation with German Fraunhofer Institute. DyCoNet was an intelligent ULD that would collect and communicate a series of useful data such as location.
Formerly, the technology itself had been a challenge. Today, the challenge rather is at what cost you can operate built-in GPS devices. We have a number of projects running in this field. They will continue to bring useful innovations that will be financially bearable,” he said.
Customer portfolio
Among the airlines Jettainer works for/ with are Jet Airways, ECAir, American Airlines and Condor and a joint agreement has been signed to cover Thomas Cook Group Airlines which includes Thomas Cook Airlines UK and Thomas Cook Airlines Scandinavia. Additionaly it has recently taken over the ULD management for KF Aerospace (formerly Kelowna Flightcraft).
Airlines are interested in Jettainer’s innovations, as well as the next generation of lightweight ULDs, according to Hernig whose company is interested in different types of airlines for different reasons. With an established track record with large established carriers there is an obvious match to be made but there are other strands it is taking into account.
“We are increasingly approaching low cost carriers and leisure airlines which nowadays are significantly expanding their product portfolio, for example in terms of adding widebody aircrafts to their fleets in order to serve long-haul destinations,” said Hernig.
More surprising, but less so when you think of how big its network is, is Jettainer’s ability to absorb the smallest and most niche of customers. “Last year, for example, we signed with Equatorial Congo Airlines (ECAir), based in Brazaville in order to support the airline in its aim to develop as a prime airline in the sub region of Africa,” he said.
All this is of course likely to impact an already strong, according to Hernig, bottom line. “Taking the size of the company, Jettainer achieves excellent revenues per employee, especially if you compare it with the quite small margins that you usually find in our industry,” he said.
