AMERICAN Airlines veteran greg Schwendinger, who joined the carrier straight out of graduate school in 2005, has returned to the company and has taken over the role as head of cargo for the past six weeks.
During his earlier stint with American Airlines Mr Schwendinger held a variety of roles at the airline in the finance, network and fleet planning, commercial and corporate development areas of the business before leaving in June 2020 to take up a position at a private equity backed healthcare services company, reports London's Air Cargo News.
'I had always observed the cargo team's performance from the finance perch or the fleet planning perch but this was an opportunity to get into the team and be hands-on,' he says.
'So many of my colleagues had roles in the cargo organization and spoke highly of it so when the opportunity presented itself it was easy for me to say yes.'
He adds: 'The culture of the cargo team is unique; it is a very close-knit culture. In many ways, it is a company within a company because of all the different things that our cargo organization does, from compliance to strategy to revenue management to commercial and ops.
'Because of that it has a bit of a small company feel but with the resources of a very large global airline, so the culture is fantastic, and the leadership team is fantastic.'
Mr Schwendinger has joined the cargo team at an interesting time; demand is resetting after a Covid-related boost, while airline passenger and bellyhold networks are being rolled out.
At the same time, American is continuing to enhance its IT capabilities following the deployment of IBS Software's iCargo system.
'It is an interesting time, the supply/demand dynamic in the cargo space is changing,' he said.
'We are paying close attention to what is going on with inflation across various economies that we do business with and what their central banks are doing to rein in inflation.
'That will invariably have some impact on the business, but to what extent and for how long is yet to be determined. We are keeping a close eye on that situation.'
Despite these challenges, Mr Schwendinger says that 2022 will be the second-highest revenue-generating year for American Airlines Cargo after 2021.
Higher freight rates have helped offset industry-wide volume declines and it should be noted that IATA statistics show volumes are still tracking in line with 2019 levels.
In terms of cargo capacity, Roger Samways, vice president commercial, says that the airline is at about 90 per cent of pre-Covid 2019 levels.
The overall airline is running at around 93 per cent of 2019 levels, although mainline is closer to 100 per cent with regional capacity still lagging slightly.
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During his earlier stint with American Airlines Mr Schwendinger held a variety of roles at the airline in the finance, network and fleet planning, commercial and corporate development areas of the business before leaving in June 2020 to take up a position at a private equity backed healthcare services company, reports London's Air Cargo News.
'I had always observed the cargo team's performance from the finance perch or the fleet planning perch but this was an opportunity to get into the team and be hands-on,' he says.
'So many of my colleagues had roles in the cargo organization and spoke highly of it so when the opportunity presented itself it was easy for me to say yes.'
He adds: 'The culture of the cargo team is unique; it is a very close-knit culture. In many ways, it is a company within a company because of all the different things that our cargo organization does, from compliance to strategy to revenue management to commercial and ops.
'Because of that it has a bit of a small company feel but with the resources of a very large global airline, so the culture is fantastic, and the leadership team is fantastic.'
Mr Schwendinger has joined the cargo team at an interesting time; demand is resetting after a Covid-related boost, while airline passenger and bellyhold networks are being rolled out.
At the same time, American is continuing to enhance its IT capabilities following the deployment of IBS Software's iCargo system.
'It is an interesting time, the supply/demand dynamic in the cargo space is changing,' he said.
'We are paying close attention to what is going on with inflation across various economies that we do business with and what their central banks are doing to rein in inflation.
'That will invariably have some impact on the business, but to what extent and for how long is yet to be determined. We are keeping a close eye on that situation.'
Despite these challenges, Mr Schwendinger says that 2022 will be the second-highest revenue-generating year for American Airlines Cargo after 2021.
Higher freight rates have helped offset industry-wide volume declines and it should be noted that IATA statistics show volumes are still tracking in line with 2019 levels.
In terms of cargo capacity, Roger Samways, vice president commercial, says that the airline is at about 90 per cent of pre-Covid 2019 levels.
The overall airline is running at around 93 per cent of 2019 levels, although mainline is closer to 100 per cent with regional capacity still lagging slightly.
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