Being from a small town, the very idea of hundreds of people occupying the one plane landing before me, one that had just flown from the other side of the world, was then a wonderful one in the true sense of the word.  Along those same lines, the very fact that Pan Am had called such planes their “Clippers” was both fitting and remarkable marketing.
 
I was never to get aboard one of those first series B747-100 passenger planes, but on several occasions I was in the jump seats and cabin on the full freighter 100 version. I could not afford to purchase a ticket in order to fly in such a plane until adulthood, but what I could do was to apply for a job in the international freight industry.  I could also decide to work my tail off in order to learn, and then (by way of being productive) get ahead in that industry.
 
As my career flourished in international transport, so too did the proliferation of the Boeing “jumbo” into nearly all of the major air (trunk) routes of the world.  Today, however, we are gradually seeing the B747 passenger planes being withdrawn from service.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-01-11/united-s-747-retirement-plan-marks-end-for-iconic-jumbo-in-u-s
 
The above-linked announcement of United’s withdrawal is, for me, significant in that they had taken over Pan Am’s Pacific air routes upon the latter's demise.  In fact, despite all the hard work, it had taken quite some time until I was offered my first business flight across the Pacific in the early-to-mid 80’s; and so it proved that I was to be flown by United on an ex-Pan Am long-range B747-SP.  While the United attendants and cabin crew, might have been described as more than a little tired at the time, this plane’s performance envelope was still one to catch the imagination.  The most significant thing about the shortened SP version of the B747 was that it had sufficient range to overfly Hawaii, and it allowed direct flight from Sydney to Los Angeles.   
 
Flying a regular B747-200, or DC10, at that time (as I was to do more regularly) meant landing at an ungodly hour in the morning in Honolulu, recovering your luggage, waiting interminably until US Customs opened, and then confronting the said Customs officers before they had absorbed their first coffee of the morning.  After many tortuous hours, you gained the "privilege" to recheck your luggage, and depart for the next intermediate US airport, where you would often have to again immediately transfer to a beyond location on a fully US domestic flight.  Hence getting a B747-SP flight (see video in the end of this post), and being able to access a 75% agent discounted ticket from United, was a godsend!

I would go on to take several flights on the B747-SP, and even though I never got to fly to South Africa on one of the QANTAS planes of this model, I did once have an interesting flight into Sydney on Mandarin Airlines where the ex-Taiwanese air force pilot threw the shortened high performance version of the jumbo around like a sports car, as he tried to wipe off speed and extend time after having approached Sydney too quickly for air traffic control’s liking.
 
Before leaving the 200 series jumbo, I need to mention two very significant points.  The first is that the 200 became the base load carrying aircraft for most long haul international routes where its range was often appropriate to the market.  Without it my industry would not have grown the way it did, and my opportunities may well have been far more limited.  The B747-200 was better for the cargo industry than later series planes principally because the shorter flight ranges available to passengers correlated with near-maximised cargo loads in most instances.  In practice they were also to prove far less affected (in respect of cargo load-ability) than later B747 series by winds and full passenger/baggage loads on most of their scheduled sectors. 
 
The other B747-200 series aircraft that was particularly important for the Australian market (for QANTAS who operated it, and for my career) was the B747-200 Combi.  This aircraft’s main passenger deck was shortened, with the aft of the plane being occupied by freight that was loaded through a rear main-deck cargo door.  The difference between able to load cargo with heights around 1.6me under-deck in the cargo holds, with that of over 2me on a main cargo deck of a B747 was profound.
 
The particular significance of the said B747-200 Combi aircraft for my employer at the time was the enabling of the carriage by air of tall mainframe computers, which was for us and many others, a key 1980’s market.   At the time, the economics of running full freighter airliners, for those airlines operating on the Pacific runs in particular, would not have allowed them to serve the computer market as effectively as when the Combis were in service.  
 
Alas, the downfall of the 200 series Combi was to be correlated with the firewall issues that were punctuated on 28 November 1987; when a South African Airlines 747- 200 Combi was lost over the Indian Ocean.  While the Dutch and others flew some in later jumbo series, the Combi was never to be widely considered as effective in service again. 
 
It was, however, to be the last of the “classic” jumbo’s, the B747-300, that was to prove to be my favourite of the overall series.   Whether it was flying as a passenger with JAL across the Pacific, or with QANTAS on the Tokyo route, this aircraft just felt right for me on a seat-of-the-pants basis.
 
As for the B747-400, marking it as a "non-classic" of the series is appropriate as I see it.  Upon launch as a passenger plane it failed its cargo load-ability test at anywhere near range at its maximum takeoff weight.  It’s range performance simply didn’t meet Boeing’s sales pitch bought by the airlines that operated them.

When Boeing offered and delivered the extended range version of the B747-400 to QANTAS, their passenger management commercial decision was to consume the critical extra maximum take-off weight gained by immediately installing heavier on-board entertainment systems which, in turn, meant that direct flights to & from ports like Chicago and Dallas and the Australian East Coast became very marginal propositions for BOTH cargo and passengers.  And yet, still we found cargo was sometimes pushed back by the pilots for US West Coast departing flights given adverse winds and high passenger loads. 

The full cargo (or freighter version) of the B747-400 was ok, but it didn’t bring a lot extra to the table other than increased reliability & better fuel burn after they displaced the old-banger 100 and 200 series freighters that had been operating well past their used-by dates (to the point of the doors falling off!).  Over the following decade it would be proved that the B747-400F's ultimately didn't pay their way.
 
The more recent B747-8F freighter has achieved a very limited number of orders and is to be the last of the jumbo series (if you exclude the troubled US Presidential plane project). As with the B747-400F, the lesser viability of new delivered freighters in the contemporary era is down to the proliferation of belly cargo space in the fast growing wide-body passenger aircraft market.   In the latter case, if the cargo revenues derived from marketing from this passenger belly space do more than pay for the fuel, marketing/admin, and terminal costs, then they are contributing marginal returns to the overall airline operation.
 
Just as high value cargoes like mainframe computers have shrunk in physical size (and crucially in height), so too have many other tech devices. This means that demand for main deck cargo has ebbed in parallel with the new orders for the jumbo.
​
Perhaps the demise of the jumbo is fitting for the era, and perhaps too, new inspiration and concepts appropriate for a new era are overdue.

​

Upon gaining a certain number of relevant experiences in their industry sector, many aspiring young managers become better tuned to observing and listening to the personal experiences of others in their marketplace. 
 
Most old industry hands contend that such tuning is also required in respect of the higher skill of absorbing learning from the same experiences and observation.   Just to have been in a lecture, or have experienced an event, doesn’t necessarily mean that one has successfully or fulsomely absorbed the information imparted.  
 
You will hear many say, in an around about way, that gaining actual experience in the field should always come before attempting to fully absorb theoretical learning (or cut & pastes).   If you are properly educated, many contend that you should enter the workplace ready to learn – rather than consider yourself learned – and you must be ready to either re-learn, or reabsorb in a different light, what you have learned before.      
 
And speaking of “experience” here, we don’t mean that gained by doing menial process work in a militaristic or Taylorist fashion.  We mean having been included at some level in a responsibility chain, in respect of the conduct of an aligned business.  And more importantly, one usually must have personally sufficiently “bought in” to the situation (have felt they had something at stake), even if it is a collective organisational, or industry experience, that is being observed at close-hand.
 
It seems to us also, that the whole idea put forward by those that apply the prevalent American liberal management theory “that one might fail their way to the top of an industry” – has rather less to do with learning about risk, and absorbing experience – and rather more to do with creating a tidal wave of personal obligations directed solely to your superiors - and hence may be limiting in respect of your field of vision of the experience of others.
 

And so, when we gained the impression, that in seeking to build a large, broadly based, and accumulative-growth oriented merchandise transport & logistics business, that one might seek to avoid serving sectors like the soft furnishing market; or the low-value perishables sectors, among others; the same was derived rather more from peripheral experiences - where one was able to observe, and absorb - from the learning experiences of others, rather than having to fail our way through them personally.
 


So too, if one seeks to process “factoids” that might otherwise may be quickly grabbed from this blog, we would encourage our readers to look closely at any qualifying statements we make in respect of solutions we have analysed. If we were to have contended that a strategy, or concept, is usually not appropriate – we certainly do not mean that it is never appropriate.  In fact, for a logistician, often when you find such an exception - it can be gold. 

In respect of our personal learning experiences concerning risk and sustainability paradigms, an early lesson came to me while handling sandwich-styled tanning (solarium) beds sold to buyers from well-off households, and trendy tanning salons.  Another was from handling an organic cosmetic (that consisted of nothing  other than a particular type of dirt having been ground, scooped into a container, and subsequently shipped). 
 
There would have been no lesson, in the above-mentioned instances, if the air freight volumes we handled had not soared, and the proprietors had not soon after gone into liquidation.   Most noteworthy for me, in that experience, was perceiving the amplified risk in dealing with those over-leveraged into a market set to mature quickly, where moreover, the proprietors were also running a very narrow range of product lines.
 
In both cases cited above, I also quickly came to realise that the airlines involved, those whose revenues constituted the majority of the whole in the billed transportation services, had been fully compensated - and that we (their channel distribution partner) were left with the bad debts that unwound most – if not all, or more - of the profits earned over the duration of handling the business.   This was to become one of those early fundamental lessons in my career, in respect of the reality of the underlying distribution model of the forwarder-carrier industry.
 
And, while decades of experience might otherwise recommend avoiding handling the business of those reliant on receiving government subsidies and bailouts, it was another of my early observations that provided a significant lesson to me in respect of exceptions and opportunism. 
 
My employer at the time was Burlington Northern – and in the early 1980’s the CEO of the forwarding division bought into a bailout deal that saved Chrysler at the time.  It was then a big deal as viewed by our fellows in a lightly capitalised industry – but it was also a marketing hit that leveraged Chrysler CEO Lee-Iacocca’s presence.  This deal was also given extra impetus with the onset of the Reagan "can-do" signature presidency.  Every employee of my then employer (even a soul as lowly positioned as I was then) felt a part of that bailout; & I clearly recall subsequently buying & intently reading the book “Iacocca”.   
 
BN was to get their Chrysler money back at that time, and they gained a larger share of the business.  Further, many a BN introductory sales pitch started with the line “let me explain to you what sort of company we are….”   The creation of an association with a plucky well-promoted fighter, that ran a big brand company with their backs to the wall, might have been an acceptable risk – and Warren Buffet would certainly say so - if he thought government could be forced to have his back in such circumstances.
 
A simple story what?   Well, maybe a little less clearly so, if you were to pan forward to 2009:

“Iacocca losing pension, car, in Chrysler bankruptcy”

https://web.archive.org/web/20090612074530/http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090529/bs_nm/us_chrysler_iacocca

​We have returned to the Gilead blog today in order to begin publishing a short series of posts following the theme “learning experiences”.  Our observations in this series may hardly be revolutionary, in respect of learning and experience in the broader sense, but we hope that they add value in respect of the specific cases made.
 
This blog was indeed intended to be primarily dedicated to the above-mentioned cause.  Further, our long held intent has been to avoid the temptation of merely drawing attention to an assorted array of clever factoids, so we hope many of our posts are read as general themes that are in turn supported by selective experiences.
 
We do not pretend to be journalists at Gilead, and so we don’t create a continuous stream of responses to contemporary trends or events here.  Moreover, we are certainly not spending time seeking to turn out ready-made solutions for web surfers.  Hence, we decided some time ago now to pause, and let the robots and feeds that came to attach themselves to this blog suck air for a good while.

We note too, however, that we no longer live in generous times in our industry - when it comes to nurturing & sharing ideas - for the common good.  The growth of more bureaucratically administered integrated service providers, and a plague of “wanna be” disrupters trolling industry professionals, have had roles to play in that regard.  Perhaps then, it is no wonder that the free exchange of ideas among industry participants was more evident when I came through the traps?
 
However, for those young people that now believe the road to success may be found to be merely employing a search engine, and the “cut & paste” of ideas; our advice is that we doubt that they will be “picking any winners” in the complicated field of merchandise transport and logistics.   In our estimation, their chances of doing so would rank right down there with the government & political executive short-cutters that attempt the same.
 
If one wishes to out-perform one’s peers in the general transport and logistics sector, however, you will always be required to have a marked corner of winners among your menu of customers, and customer sectoral groups.  Often, you will find that you haven’t deliberately solicited many of these entities – but recognising them - and biasing your nurture effort towards them - is an essential skill. 
 
Moreover, at a bare minimum in this same business, you need to be able to readily spot losing scenarios; and be able to respond to your inevitable encounters with them in an appropriate and decisive manner.  
 
If you choose, or are forced by means of circumstance, to play with business that emanates from an identified loser sector, or trade, you certainly need to be at the top of your game day-in-and-day-out.  There are opportunities out there, however, as we found when engaged with our past colleagues in building long-term market leading volume, and high yield, in the otherwise renowned low yield trans-Tasman air freight sector.  However, any such opportunities require careful crafting and continuous nurture.  
 
Yet even if you are playing at the top of your game in difficult trades, experience & observation should inform you, that in these instances, the black swan event could find you at any point – and mitigation strategies are easier said than landed.