CIFFA Forwarder Magazine

12 THE FORWARDER | WINTER 2025 Casey noted that the government is putting money into airports (through the National Trade Corridors Fund, Vancouver airport received $74 million and Toronto $94 million. “These are big investments geared towards cargo specifically. Supply chain is on everybody’s radar. These are long term investments though. We are also helping alongside the airports to indicate what we need to keep things flowing. Cargo is also in the belly of passenger aircraft -as we continue to invest in cargo infrastructure those passengers come with it.” Added Fried: “In the U.S. this issue of insufficient infrastructure investment is not isolated. You need to take action. We coalesced with other associations and said we need to go to Congress and educate lawmakers about the air cargo business. The reality is that we went to Capitol Hill, to the House Representatives and the Senate. We need to draw attention to this,” he said. The Government Accountability Office put 50 people on it to generate a report-we have a report that validates our assertions. We will start a pilot project with other airports (ie MIAMI), and start investing as proof of concept. The automation piece is low hanging fruit. This is how we are going to get things started. IATA has forecast 4% growth in cargo for the next 40 years. It’s not just here its worldwide Said Fried, “I never thought I would be sitting here as a Democrat defending Reagan. We are in an uncertain environment, alienating our friends. We need tariffs to balance trade and as a leveraging agent. We don’t need the type of tariffs being employed by the U.S. right now. Now how are freight forwarders responding? We are no longer just moving boxes-we are becoming consultants. We have to be authoritative and engaging. We are not in this alone. We are engaging our airline partners. It’s a time of uncertainty and unrecoverable compliance costs, but freight forwarders thrive in chaos-look how we performed during Covid,” he said. “Nimbleness is a muscle we’ve developed over time,” said Casey. “We were very uncertain about how the year was going to be. We have an industry that is adept at adapting. As an airline we can adapt very quickly-very last minute,” he said. “The U.S. is going to lose air capacity-we don’t have the demand,” said Fried. “Thriving on chaos-that’s the world we have been living in for almost a year,” said Elias. “Freight forwarders are best in class and know what is going on more so than the best consultants,” he said. On the topic of drones, Canada has a lot of remote areas, and there is an infrastructure requirement and cost to that. “Government has been vocal about wanting to do it-they just haven’t been too quick about it,” said Casey, who added that on November 4, new regulations are going into place for drones- regulatory bound. “We have to rely on that to change before we can get to a point where it’s really benefitting communities. There are lots of security and safety issues we need to know about,” he said. “Canada is a really good platform for drones-and remote communities for small parcel shipments,” said Elias. “My experience in Manitoba is having had multiple conversations with indigenous communities in northern Manitoba. As drone development and innovation increase there will eventually be better economies of scale. Thresholds and capacity and distance (cold weather) are considerations,” he said. “The reality is we need to work out the reliability framework. If you lose sight of that drone and it crashes things will come to a screeching halt. We are litigious in the U.S. But these will be a tool in the future for sure,” Fried said. Are negotiable bills of lading a document we need in air cargo? There would have to be a good case for it, said Elias. Fried said that we spend a lot of time at the Transportation Security Administration and this never comes up. “With advance loading and known shipper programs, we should be focusing more on automation and digital integrity. Lots of governments are still requiring paper. The TSA just allowed an electronic security declaration but very few airlines are ready,” he said. (Left: Bill Gottlieb, Right: Brad Elias)