Women in Air Cargo- Charting new frontiers

On International Women's Day this month, The STAT Trade Times speaks to leaders from the air cargo industry to shine a light on a project or initiative that they greenlit and powered that has added value to the industry in small and large ways. We ask these leaders to share details of their most challenging yet most rewarding projects that they chose to lead in their career

Yulia Celetaria
Healthcare Director Global at AirBridgeCargo Airlines and Volga-Dnepr Group

1. Describe a project/initiative that you greenlit that you believe has impacted the industry in some ways or added value to the life of professionals in the air cargo industry?
When I started my career in the air cargo sector, over 15 years ago, it was a typical man's world. Although I was lucky enough to join AirBridgeCargo Airlines – a forward-thinking company that values employees not by their gender roles but rather by their achievements, input, and efforts. Thanks to the right work attitude and determination I soon moved to our Frankfurt office, where I was able to gain experience and knowledge at first and then share it with our colleagues being at the position of Customer Service Manager, Standards and Training. One of the training courses covered the transportation of temperature-sensitive cargo.

While it was new but at the same time a very interesting area for me, besides, with the active development of healthcare transportation in the air cargo sector, it was essential to broaden and deepen my knowledge. I soon realized that this is it – that this is the area I could progress, contribute and develop. It required a lot of industry training and certification, self-education, as well as networking. In 2020, I was promoted to the position of Global Healthcare Director.

I cannot say that this has been an easy path for me, but I believe I was able to greenlight the pharma topic within the Volga-Dnepr Group, build a team of like-minded specialists, either by bringing them from the industry or by nurturing them within our company, by shaping up effective communication channels with our customers, supplier and partners worldwide and, most importantly, by upscaling the quality services of our Group for the healthcare industry. It has been challenging and it still is but my team gives me the strength to move forward and I appreciate all the efforts we take together.

2. What was your objective for it, what impact did you want this project/initiative to achieve, and what was some feedback that you received for it?
As mentioned, my objective was to persuade the pharma industry that air cargo is a viable and effective transportation mode for medical products. We started with minor trial shipments and as of now, our market share exceeds 10% which means that every tenth vaccine or pill is transported aboard the Volga-Dnepr Group's freighters.

Over the last five years, we have managed to build an expert image in the healthcare logistics market and right now we are happy to see that our services expand beyond pure air freight and embrace integrated logistics services which cover first/last mile, terminal handling, customs and much more. This is a whole new world of life-saving logistics that we are building together with our customers and partners.

3. Is there any lesson, skill, or value that you may have picked up from your previous or current job or a different profession that you have been a part of- that you believe has helped you succeed in your professional life/career?
I think that now soft skills prevail in our industry as they are incredibly important, especially in our alternative office spaces or flexible work environments that are becoming increasingly commonplace. While certain soft skills are inherent, some of them could be learned or upscaled in parallel with required hard skills and industry knowledge. This is exactly what I have been doing since the start of my career at Volga-Dnepr Group and I am happy to learn every day since logistics is a fascinating world where you never stop learning.

(As of March 2022, Yulia has moved on to a new position as Global Healthcare Director at AirFreight Logistics S.à r.l.)

Laura Rodriguez from Cargo iQ at IATA
Manager Implementation and Quality Assurance

1. Describe a project/initiative that you greenlit that you believe has impacted the industry in some ways or added value to the life of professionals in the air cargo industry?
I believe one of my greatest contributions to the air cargo industry has been the training that we deliver within Cargo iQ. The content of the training includes explanations specific to Cargo iQ but also on the operational steps to transport air cargo, communication between participants, quality assurance, etc. We launched the first face-to-face introductory training in 2018 and the first e-learning/online training in 2020. We developed the online version as a response to the pandemic when it was no longer possible for us to travel and deliver them face to face. I am very proud of it since, being unplanned, we developed it with no budget and only with the resources that we had available. The result is a hybrid of e-learning video pods, an online session, and a test. The online training not only provided continuity to the training, but they also allowed us to reach a new demographic and a number of participants that we would not have reached with the traditional module.

2. What was your objective for it, what impact did you want this project/initiative to achieve, and what was some feedback that you received for it?
The objective of these training sessions is twofold. First, we wanted to help people who were new to the industry or to Cargo iQ to understand how they both work and to understand the standards that we created and how they relate to their everyday job. Once people understand that these standards are in place to try to improve the way we work, they are much more likely to apply them and to ask others to apply them as well. The second objective was to make our jobs easier as well.

We were having many of the same questions repeating themselves. This made us understand that the documentation that we had was not clear enough and not self-explanatory. We needed to proactively explain it and to create a space for people to ask specific questions. Participants often have questions about situations that are exceptional or related to a specific region. You cannot take all the possible scenarios into account in a single document. The training is extremely popular and there is a constant flow of people that want to take them. Feedback on the online training has been particularly positive.

People love video pods because they are a fast, easy way of absorbing a lot of information, but I think they also like the personal aspect since it is my colleagues and me who appear in the videos. They also really enjoy the online sessions because they not only get their questions answered but they also get to network with other participants and share similar hurdles and best practices. We structured the online sessions around games, so they are fun for participants and for us to deliver as well. The trainings have had an extra benefit for us and this is getting to know our community much better. We are meeting people in all corners of the world, whom we would have probably never met otherwise. It is also very satisfying to know that the work we do has a global reach.

3. Is there any lesson, skill, or value that you may have picked up from your previous or current job or a different profession that you have been a part of- that you believe has helped you succeed in your professional life/career?
I play football in my free time, and this has taught me great lessons about teamwork. Everyone on the team is equally important but they need to know that in order to play their part correctly. Similarly in our industry, everyone has an important role to play but maybe are not conscious of it. Through the training, I hope we are reminding people how important their role is for the greater benefit of the industry. Plus, we have fun in the process.

Céline Hourcade
Founder and Managing Director, Change Horizon

1. Describe a project/initiative that you greenlit that you believe has impacted the industry in some ways or added value to the life of professionals in the air cargo industry?
Back in 2013, together with a colleague of mine at IATA, we designed and launched the FACE programme. FACE stands for "Future Air Cargo Executives" and this programme was a response to a lack of youngsters in the air cargo industry, or rather the visible lack of young people attending and speaking at industry events. It started with a simple idea and a relatively small action: organizing an annual FACE Summit at the IATA World Cargo Symposium for promising talents under 35 and offering them a platform for growth, while encouraging them to attend (or their boss to send them to) air cargo conferences.

Similarly with the experience and success of FACE in mind, I had reached out to my friend Emma Murray (founder, and CEO of PR agency Meantime Communications) early last year to initiate another industry programme to address the lack of visible women in air cargo. Our Women in Aviation & Logistics (WAL) was launched on International Women's Day in 2021 to mobilise the industry and drive positive change towards gender equality.

2. What was your objective for it, what impact did you want this project/initiative to achieve, and what was some feedback that you received for it?
While FACE's objective was to make the air cargo industry more attractive and welcoming to younger talents, WAL is about pushing for gender diversity. FACE turned out to be very successful and I think we can proudly say it did contribute to making the younger generation more visible at events, in the media, and within their companies, and air cargo more attractive to them. The value for the industry and for corporates is huge: they bring new ideas, drive transformation, launch innovative start-ups and contribute to making air cargo more digital, sustainable, attractive.

I have no doubt that diversity enriches businesses: having the opportunity to hear different voices and combine different perspectives and strengths reduce blind spots, foster creativity, and help innovative ideas to blossom. Regrettably, the lack of gender diversity in our industry is very visible, both in the audience and on stage. This is what we try to change with WAL: encourage female experts to make their profiles available on the WAL database for event organizers and media to use to improve their gender diversity.

WAL has got great support in its first year of existence and we have expanded the scope recently with a free cross-industry mentoring program for women in the aviation and logistics sectors. The first wave of WAL mentoring started in January this year with 27 pairs of mentors/mentees. It is exciting to hear so much great feedback from all of them already! I have no doubt it will help most of them to further develop their career and strengthen their self-confidence.

3. Is there any lesson, skill, or value that you may have picked up from your previous or current job or a different profession that you have been a part of- that you believe has helped you succeed in your professional life/career?
Driving positive change is in my DNA, having been Head of Cargo Transformation at IATA and Transformation director of TIACA. This is why I am so passionate about FACE and WAL and also the reason I have embarked on the entrepreneurship journey in 2019 when I founded Change Horizon, a management consulting company accompanying CEOs and leadership teams in their sustainable transformation projects, focusing on driving positive change.

(The story has previously appeared in the March issue of The STAT Trade Times)