Skeleton staffing is new industry reality amid pandemic

Many cargo carriers and forwarders have taken advantage of their global operational footprints to observe best practices in Asia and prepare worldwide for maintaining global logistics during the coronavirus pandemic, airline and forwarder representatives told Air Cargo World . “So far we have been able to successfully move to home office work for the large part of our operations,” Henri Le Gouis, CEO of Bollore Logistics Europe and Pascal Le Guevel, branch manager for Bollore Logistics at Roissy CDG, told Air Cargo World . The French third-party logistics company is still fully operational, thanks to preparations the company made when the coronavirus impact was still primarily felt in Asia, ahead of its spread to Europe and the Americas. Bollore moved ahead with plans to implement air cargo charter service between China and Europe, and began offering chartered service between Luxembourg (LUX) and Shanghai Pudong (PVG) on March 11. As of today, the company’s most recent update states that air cargo capacity between Europe and the U.S. is expected to be “drastically reduced,” and proposes plans to utilize regular flights from the U.K., as well as freighter operations and ad-hoc charter flights to limit the impact on its clients. As for its on-the-ground operations, Bollore acknowledged that people must still be based on site to do the cargo handling itself, but the company is relying on remote operations for many clerical and managerial tasks — highlighting the importance of solid IT and telecommunications systems to maintain the supply chain during the pandemic. To accommodate the important on-site work vital to logistics, including printing labels, handling freight and similar tasks, some forwarders are working in staggered shifts to reduce exposure. A U.S.-based 3PL that declined to be named said it is working to balance remote with in-office work among its team members, requiring workers to be in the office only a couple of scheduled times per week, spaced across the week. Even for those staff members working on site, face-to-face meetings are banned, and all calls are held using Zoom or other software. Charter broker Air Charter Service said it was able to adapt best-practices from its Beijing and Shanghai offices to prepare its global offices for the remote-work dynamic. “We had a system in place that worked well in Beijing and Shanghai, we just rolled out globally,” Dan Morgan-Evans, the company’s global cargo director, told Air Cargo World . “Every one of our brokers has a laptop and access to all our systems. They effectively can work sitting at home in exactly the same way as if they were sitting in the office.” Meanwhile, as with forwarders, many airline employees must be on site to continue operating. “We’re trying to keep the world functioning, both on the economy point of view and helping to save people’s lives,” said Atlas Air Worldwide Chief Commercial Operator Michael Steen. Atlas has a large operational footprint in the Asian markets through its subsidiary carriers Polar Air Cargo, Southern Air and Atlas Air. Steen said that as COVID-19 was developing in Asia, Atlas set up a team internally that oversees safety standards for its staff across its various divisions. “We are taking precautions throughout our system to make sure that we can be up and running 24/7, in the 120-plus countries around the world just like we were before,” Steen said.

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