CargoForwarder Global’s ‘Spotlight On…’ looks at a different aspect of the air cargo industry each week, to illustrate the huge variety of careers available. Given the ongoing struggle to find new air cargo talent and the managers of tomorrow, one area of importance – and one that should be highlighted and accessed far more often – is the world of academia. Not only is it a hotbed of possibility when it comes to delving into new ideas, researching and developing answers to existing issues and potential future ones, but it also offers a bridge through people who can shed light on and spark interest in the air cargo industry and what it has to offer – whether this is through visiting guest lecturers or full-time academics and training professionals such as Diarto Aalders, Senior Lecturer Aviation Operations at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. He takes us through his perspectives, experience, and advice for those looking to join the air cargo industry, this week.
CFG: What is your current function and company? And what are your responsibilities?
DA: Primarily, I am a senior lecturer at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences’ Aviation Academy. My main responsibilities entail the delivery of different subjects across our 4-year bachelor Air Transport Management program. Moreover, I supervise students working on both group and individual research projects. Such projects are often performed for organizations in the industry for which I serve as main coordinator. This requires me to be out in the industry regularly, procuring assignments both ad-hoc and strategically.
Secondly, I get to combine my academic work with industry training delivery at IATA Training where I serve as external instructor. There, I deliver a broad range of courses from the cargo and logistics portfolio.
CFG: What does a normal day look like for you?
DA: To some extent, yes, there is such a thing as a normal day. Higher education is highly structured as a year has two semesters with two study blocks each. Those follow a predetermined pattern ranging from kick-off to teaching to examining and assessing. Within those periods, ample variety exists, of course. Students are rarely ever all on the same page, leading to interesting debates. Just yesterday, students were ranking different developments in the ground handling industry based on impact, viability, etc. Unbeknownst to them when starting, there is no single solution, only good discussions that help form the students into critical thinkers. That is something I love about my job since often I, myself, learn to see new perspectives on situations.
CFG: How long have you been in the air cargo industry, and what brought you to it?‘
DA: September 2013 is when I formally started working full-time in air cargo with Swissport Cargo, so that brings me up to 12.5 years. Informally however, I started at the cargo ramp with Martinair Cargo, as a student back in the summer of 2011, which makes my cargo career specifically span 15 years to date. While initially it was my childhood love for aviation that brought me to pursue a degree in aviation engineering, my student job at the airport exposed me to a much more interesting industry than MRO; ground and cargo handling. Before graduating, I decided to double down on cargo, joining the Air France-KLM Martinair Cargo’s corporate purchasing team for my thesis, learning about the world of sub-contracting GHAs. From there, the step to a GHA after graduation was an obvious one, which brings me back to the start of this paragraph; September 2013.
CFG: What do you enjoy most about your job?
DA: Working with students with whom I have a shared passion for aviation is incredibly rewarding. Not just because I get to talk about the industry I care about so much. But also because many young people come into aviation initially with the idea of becoming a pilot. Through interactions, discussions, guidance coaching, they learn about a much bigger ecosystem of stakeholders, departments, and jobs. To that end, every student who realizes that there is more to aviation than being a pilot is somewhat of a personal win for me.
CFG: Where do you see the greatest challenges in our industry?
DA: Particularly in Europe, we see increasing pressure to reduce emissions in our industry. While I support this wholeheartedly, I also acknowledge that this will be hard to swallow. With the existing tight margins and cut-throat competition that we see, emissions reductions won’t happen by themselves. If I compare this upcoming transition to net zero or significantly reduced emissions, to how we have been digitalizing our industry, we have decades of work ahead of us. Much more can be said about this but that’s a topic for another time.
CFG: What advice would you give to people looking to get into the air cargo industry?
DA: Before answering, it’s probably important to mention that most people I know didn’t choose to get into air cargo at all. To me, that is symptomatic to a larger problem and that is that we are taken for granted by everyday people. It’s the hidden engine of our economy that should deserve more, much more attention. Programs, or project weeks in high schools, local initiatives, and overall education could help start closing that gap.
That said, many introductory trainings exist which are instrumental in getting an understanding of the different stakeholders, processes, and abbreviations we have. Whether that’s with a local (vocational) school, in-company, or with global organizations such as IATA, any start is a good start. There are so many different areas within air cargo where talent can bloom. It is exposing yourself to the larger ecosystem before diving into a specific role that I see as valuable, and then train and learn from an area of passion, not an area of chance.
CFG: If the air cargo industry were a film/book, what would its title be?
DA: I love metaphors but I’m terrible at questions like these. Still, following my previous point that we’re not seen enough, I’d say we title our book “The invisible lifeline”.
Thank you very much, Diarto.
If you would like to share your personal air cargo story with our CargoForwarder Global readers, feel free to send your answers to the above questions to cargoforwarderglobal@kopfpilot.at We look forward to shining a spotlight on your job area, views, and experiences.
