“As soon as we became aware of the impact of COVID-19 on the worldwide economy, we took several steps”, says ACN’s Managing Director Maarten van As. He continues, “Usually our sector councils meet four times per year, but the first thing we decided was to have weekly online meetings with the ACN board members and the chairmen and deputy chairmen of all councils as insight into the situation is very important in a crisis situation.”

As soon as we became aware of the impact of COVID-19 on the worldwide economy, we took several steps”, says ACN’s Managing Director Maarten van As. He continues, “Usually our sector councils meet four times per year, but the first thing we decided was to have weekly online meetings with the ACN board members and the chairmen and deputy chairmen of all councils as insight into the situation is very important in a crisis situation.”
A clear eye In these weekly meetings the daily operation was discussed, as well as the issues that the various branches were facing and how to solve them. Mr Van As explains, “Our sector councils represent the various branches that are involved in the Dutch air cargo industry so by meeting each other on a weekly basis, we could keep a clear eye on what the effects of the coronavirus were on daily business. It also helped us to act fast whenever necessary measures were required. Not only big issues were discussed. We also talked about, for example, the need of additional toilet facilities for
truck drivers. In the early days of the virus, many shippersdid not want the drivers to use their toilets because of the corona measures. Which is why we discussed this item with Schiphol Airport.” Another important thing was health-related absenteeism. “In some European countries,” comments Mr Van As, “absenteeism rocketed sky high in our industry because of corona infections, but also becausepersons were afraid to go to work as no one exactly knew the signs of the virus and how to deal with this. We hence prepared scenarios on how to respond to the situation in case the absenteeism would really cause problems for a continuity of operations. We explored, for instance, extra temporary storage facilities

Read the full article in Cargo Magazine 2020 Summer online edition [here]