RJ Cargo convened its two-day international Cargo Sales Meeting in August, at Kempinski Hotel, Amman. Participating were a number of RJ cargo sales and services executives, cargo agents from Jordan and abroad, and several employees in the cargo sector.
Vice President/Marketing, Sales and Services Hussein Dabbas delivered a key-note speech, helping participants to better understand the operating environment and challenges facing the entire airline.
He urged RJ cargo staff to boost freighting on board passenger aircraft and market quality cargo services. Air freight should constitute 25-30% of the overall operations of the airline.
Vice President/Cargo Ingo Roessler said that the cargo team was able to post impressive commercial results in the first seven months of 2008, yet the competition does not rest and is focusing more on the Jordan market and increasing frequency.
He said that a number of useful and fruitful discussions were held by the participants and the outstations and general sales agents during the workshops. In the field of sales and marketing, major tools were deemed significant to better market air fright onboard RJ, such as organizing events with the participation of all cargo parties, familiarization trips for selected agents and participating in worldwide fairs, like The International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) and Air Cargo Europe.
Stations were reminded that they should enter all airway bills into the system, and its services and rates, because delayed entry of net rates causes troubles to the Finance Department.
A product-development workshop tackled studying regional freighter services, such as Sana'a, Djibouti and Alexandria, the introduction of Cargo 2000 Quality Measurement system and creating an interface with Jordan customs to facilitate deliveries to/from Amman.
Roessler said that RJ will study cooperation with the Envirotainer company with a view to making it a local partner so as to serve the growing demand of logistics providers, pharmaceuticals in particular.
Envirotainer containers feature active temperature control systems; they keep the product temperature stable despite fluctuations in the ambient temperature.
The cargo services team working at the cargo terminal at Queen Alia International Airport also conducted a workshop and discussed the need to review restrictive policies concerning confirmation of bookings of shipments, improve the Unit Load Devices (ULDs), coordinating between the hub in Amman and all stations, and introduce the bar-coding system wide to facilitate racking and finding shipments at the cargo terminal, starting with the beginning of 2009.
IATA Country Manager Jordan Shamel Shishani talked about the update on the International Air Transport Association (IATA) E-Freight initiative and the new services for the air cargo community.
Ingo Roessler said that the extreme rise in fuel prices demands more focus on yield increases. "Thus we will have to work even harder to maintain our market share and develop the business in the mid and long term, as well as optimizing our ongoing scheduled operation," he concluded.
Several stations were rewarded at the workshops for their outstanding performance in terms of yield and revenue for general cargo sales and charter projects. They are:
Station with the highest absolute change in performance for the year 2008
Gold UAE/Royal Jordanian office
Silver Cairo/Royal Jordanian office
Bronze Belgium/via holding
Station with the highest increase in local yield for the year 2008
Gold Canada/Royal Jordanian office
Silver The Netherlands/via holding
Bronze Germany/Royal Jordanian office
Station with the best chargeable/actual weight ratio for the year 2008
Gold Syria/Julia Dumna Travel & Tourism
Silver Cairo/Royal Jordanian office
Bronze Greece/Royal Jordanian office
Station with the highest amount of charter projects for the year 2008
Gold Dubai/Royal Jordanian office
Silver Cairo/Royal Jordanian office
Station with the least operational discrepancies
Gold Delhi/Jetair Private Ltd.
Silver Colombo/Skycare Private Ltd.
Bronze Dubai/Royal Jordanian office
On the occasion of the cargo sales meeting, RJ Cargo also held a dinner at the Kempinski hotel, where several cargo staff members were honored for their long years of service. Following are the names:
ISMAIL ABU ZER 30 years of service
KHALIL BADARO 30 years of service
AKRAM MUSA ABU ALLOUSH 30 years of service
IBRAHIM SALEH ABDALLAT 30 years of service
HASAN ALI ABU MUSHANNAK 30 years of service
GHALEB ISSA JEBARA 30 years of service
MOHAMMAD FAWZI 30 years of service
MAHMOUD ZAHRAN 30 years of service
KAMAL SULEIMAN ABU SBEIH 30 years of service
MOHAMMED IZZAT SAMHAN 30 years of service
YOUSEF ABDULLAH MASRI 30 years of service
ZIYAD THEYAB ISSA 30 years of service
RAJA'I MAHD ALKARAKI 30 years of service
MOHAMMAD QURA'AN 30 years of service
MAHMOUD A.ALGHANAM 30 years of service
ZAEEM HEMEIDAN 30 years of service
HASAN JA'ARIM 30 years of service
OMAR GHALEB QEITOQA 25 years of service