Air Canada’s Jason Berry is the 2022 Air Cargo Executive of the Year

For Jason Berry, one distinguishing factor for leaders in the airfreight industry is the kind of shoes they wear. Early in his career, the vice president of cargo at Air Canada switched to rubber-soled shoes from leather, the better to stay comfortable while walking around facilities to visit employees. "One of the things I learned as a leader was the importance of being on the floor or on the ramp, out on the ground, walking, talking, listening to your team," Berry told Air Cargo World . "I would wear out my pair of shoes about every three months." Berry oversees Air Canada’s cargo business and profitability strategy, as well as the implementation of customer-centric initiatives. Since joining the team in January 2021, his hands-on approach has helped the carrier drastically grow its cargo operations. Air Canada saw a higher increase in traffic than any other carrier in 2021, with a 92% year-over-year jump to 2.1 billion cargo tonne kilometers (CTKs). The achievement landed Air Canada the No. 34 spot on Air Cargo World ’s most recent Freight 50 ranking from November. Air Canada hasn’t slowed down cargo operations since then; in addition to using bellyhold capacity for cargo, the carrier received and put into operation its first dedicated freighter , a 767-300F, in December 2021. For his passion and creativity in growing Air Canada Cargo into one of the industry’s leading carriers, the readers and editors of Air Cargo World have selected Berry as the Air Cargo Executive of the Year for 2022. A family industry [caption id="attachment_57133218" align="alignright" width="432"] Photo/Air Canada[/caption] Berry was immersed in logistics while growing up in Tacoma, Wash. His father, a loadmaster, would even let then 7-year-old Berry help load containers on ramps. Berry never thought he’d follow in his family’s footsteps, and instead gravitated toward chemical engineering, a path that would soon change course when he got his first job in high school working with cargo at an airport. “It was meant to be a part-time job to help pay for college … and I made a career out of it,” he said. “It's one of those things where your journey is never what you think, although aviation was always in my blood. … I just realized this is where I want to be. I love this space, and I was fortunate enough to become a loadmaster myself.” Shortly after college, Berry became a terminal manager for a ground handling company, then joined Luxembourg-headquartered Cargolux, eventually working his way up to area operations manager for its North America division. After honing his leadership skills as general manager of Menzies Aviation, then as managing director of cargo at Alaska Airlines, Berry faced one of his biggest challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic while serving as president of ground handling company and Alaska Airlines subsidiary McGee Air Services. In March 2020, with no flights departing, McGee wasn’t bringing in revenue. “There were moments when I would be driving home thinking, ‘We [have] two weeks of cash left in our bank, and how do we keep payroll going?’” he said, adding, “We got creative.” To keep staff working during lockdown and ensure McGee would retain workers for the eventual return of business, Berry and his team started a company that handled facilities security for Alaska Airlines. He also trained employees to become ramp agents, security guards and even street sweepers. The success from his efforts taught Berry how to be “scrappy” and “creative” as a leader, he said. Passionate leadership When Berry was named vice president of Air Canada Cargo in early 2021, the executive team considered itself lucky to have him on board, Lucie Guillemette, executive vice president and chief commercial officer for the carrier, told Air Cargo World . “When you join an organization, not everybody has the capacity to integrate themselves and respect the culture that they're joining, and at the same time are able to engage employees to push the business forward and get everybody really excited and passionate about what it is that we're trying to do,” Guillemette said. “And I would say that was the one thing that was remarkable with Jason.” In fact, one word came up repeatedly when Guillemette described Berry’s management style: “Passion.” Berry knows how to push an agenda forward, she said, while remaining collaborative, respectful and inclusive of colleagues. “He's an incredibly passionate guy, I would say even sometimes a bit impatient,” she said. “But at the same time, he sets the bar high for all of us. He has a vision for where he thinks we can take cargo.” Boom years When Berry joined Air Canada in 2021, it was “the year of cargo and logistics on the global stage,” Matthieu Casey, managing director of commercial for Air Canada, previously told Air Cargo World . Indeed, most carriers saw incredible jumps in volumes as both cargo and passenger service returned stronger than ever. Canada’s overall airfreight market grew rapidly in 2021, with 2.7 billion freight tonne-kilometers moved and $1.52 billion in revenue brought in — a compound annual growth rate of 2.7% since 2016, according to MarketLine reports. [caption id="attachment_57131567" align="alignleft" width="435"] Air Canada Cargo 777F. Photo/Air Canada Cargo[/caption] Most of the country’s growth came from Air Canada’s operations, which not only brought in 92% more traffic in 2021, but grew revenue by 63% YoY to US $1.04 billion, an all-time high for the carrier . While the carrier prioritized converting passenger aircraft into freighters — affectionately dubbed “charlies” by the team — 2022 has seen more aircraft reconversion back into passenger planes. In fact, Air Canada was the first passenger airline to go to market removing seats, doubling its cargo capacity, in April 2020, although it now no longer utilizes preighters. The last preighter, an A330-300 flying from Bogota (BOG) to Toronto (YYZ), was converted back to passenger service in May. This year, Air Canada Cargo ordered 11 more freighters, a mix of 767s and 777s, to join the 767 in operation. One of the aircraft has been delivered, and Berry said he expects the next to be delivered this month, with four more to come by end of 2023 and the last five by the end of 2024. With two freighters and plenty of bellyhold capacity, Air Canada still isn’t seeing traffic figures approaching 2021 levels, but Berry has called this year the carrier’s second-best ever in terms of revenue and traffic. Despite the success, the slowdown in the overall airfreight market , coupled with a muted peak season and freighter delivery delays, has given Berry and his team time to reflect on what he calls a comparatively “lackluster” year. The rapid shift into cargo hasn’t come without its challenges, Berry noted. “In 2022, there was a bit of a pause, and it was felt and you could see this from the top down … but this is our chance to build,” he said. “The biggest thing is to keep the team engaged, excited for the future, but also not losing our sight [of the fact that] these airplanes are coming. Just because they're not here now, let's make sure we're ready for them.” The pandemic made both freighter deliveries and operations difficult from a supply chain perspective, but the cargo team pulled through, Guillemette said. “Jason's team has been able to, despite that, find opportunities,” she said. The team has been “working very closely with our network planning team to find opportunities where we can actually grow our belly space or rethink a little bit how we're going to fly the network in order for us to be able to meet those expectations from customers that had given us business on the freighters.” Global cargo expansion [caption id="attachment_57133219" align="alignnone" width="2560"] Photo/Air Canada[/caption] Air Canada kicked off its dedicated freighter service with a thrice-weekly cargo route between Miami (MIA), Quito (UIO) and Lima (LIM) in January. Latin American and North American transborder routes continue to provide growth opportunities, Berry said, though Asia Pacific, once a key market for Air Canada Cargo, has yet to recover due to continued COVID-19 lockdowns. The most recent routes to be announced, from YYZ to Atlanta (ATL), Dallas (DFW) and BOG, will begin with the arrival of its third freighter. “While we're not achieving the top-end numbers that we achieved in 2021, our growth is extremely positive in Latin America, in Europe and in the United States,” he said. “So we made the best with the assets we have available.” Around 30% of the cargo that comes on or off freighters connects to Air Canada’s passenger network, which includes 1,500 unique widebody routes out of Canada, Berry said. “I think with those 767s, it just fits,” he explained. “The addition of the 777s will then allow us to really get into the transpacific in the long haul flying, and we're excited for it.” There aren’t any new dots on Air Canada’s 2023 route map yet, but the additions planned should balance out the carrier’s network, he added. The main types of cargo driving growth include perishables, e-commerce goods, automotive parts and pharmaceutical cargo. Most recently, Air Canada relaunched equine transport capabilities for its cargo fleet, with specially designed stalls that can carry up to three animals. A bright future Air Canada Cargo’s second-best year saw cargo revenues in Q3 2022 fall 23% YoY to $206 million. However, the figure represents a 59% increase when compared with the corresponding period in 2019, proving that the carrier’s cargo business continues to pay off. “We have become a billion-dollar business for the entity,” Berry said. “And that's something that we had never done and aspired to do, and only did it in 2021, for the first time in our 85 years. And we're on pace again to do this.” The year’s growth and success are already in the “rearview mirror” as Berry plans for 2023, he said. “We already know that we've now built a core business, regardless of what happens externally,” he added. “That's who we are today. And so we're really focusing on that next billion and when do we do the next things to continue to bring value to the organization?” Air Canada Cargo has much to look forward to in 2023, Berry said. The division is launching a new website in the first quarter of the year, its freighter fleet will be larger than ever, and with the arrival of more freighters may come additional routes. “The future is bright,” he said. “The network we're going to build is really deliberate; we're being very intentional. We're not chasing point to point or charter work. We are building a network that's complementary to our passenger network.” Berry credits Air Canada’s success to his team. “I can't overshadow how important this group is. No moment’s too big for them … they know their business. They care deeply about it. “It's very humbling to be recognized, but this team is the reason why Air Canada is on fire, and it has nothing to do with me. This is a great team; they just needed a little bit of a poke,” he said. Update: Jason Berry is stepping down as vice president of cargo at Air Canada to become senior vice president of operations at Alaska Air Group subsidiary Horizon Air, effective February 2023.

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