Tiaca outlines reorganisation as it adds new board members

Air cargo organisation Tiaca has added new board members and outlined its recent reoranisation that aims to prepare the association for the future.

The cross-supply chain group yesterday revealed the appointment of four new Board Members; Liana Coyne, Coyne Airways; Bob Chi, SATS Ltd; Manel Galindo, WebCargo; and Hendrik Leyssens, Swissport. 

“Each new board member has been vetted by the executive committee to ensure that the candidates not only share the association’s vision for the air cargo industry but also is in line with the mandate that was set by our trustees to have a board that fairly represents the membership by industry sector and region,” Tiaca said in a press release.

Following the announcement, Tiaca director general Glyn Hughes and chairman Steven Polmans provided a media briefing on the internal reorganisation and the changing of its governance structure.

Polmans and Hughes said the changes to the governance structure will see the director general manage all aspects of the organisation; an extended and more diverse board of directors; fixed terms introduced; board appointed chair, vice chair, treasurer and secretary; a code of conduct to ensure transparency and neutrality, an executive committee to provide monthly reports; paperless process and electronic voting; and a focussed task force based delivery model.

One of the main challenges faced by the organisation over recent years has been its financial situation. Polmans admitted that the group had faced a “cash drain” since 2010. He explained that before 2010 its biennial Air Cargo Forum had generated enough cash to cover both the year of the event and the alternate year, but more recently this had changed.

“We want to be cash-positive every year,” Polmans said. He said that its partnership with event organiser Messe Munchen on events such as the Air Cargo Forum would allow Tiaca to have less exposure.

Polmans was also asked what the overall strategic purpose of the group would be following the re-organisation.

“We will lobby where necessary, it will be part of our job,” he said “If we need to campaign on behalf of air cargo we will also do it, but most important is that we want to be an organisation that unites our members and brings them together for the benefit of the industry.

“More than ever we want to be an orgaisation that delivers content, that delivers value and get away a bit from the past where we were a lobby group and event organiser and instead truly deliver projects.”

Asked for more details on the types of projects Tiaca would deliver, Polmans highlighted the recent Covid-19 vaccine supply chain readiness survey it conducted with Pharma.Aero as a good example.

“Another one is sustainability,” he said “We don’t want to just be an organisation that talks about sustainability, we want to be an organisation that looks at what we can do to help our members become more sustainable. Another one will be quality. There are several that we are looking at, some of them might be longer campaigns that we are looking at, others might be projects for a certain period. Where we see an opportunity to make a difference, we will look at such projects.”

Hughes also identified six priorities for the industry that Tiaca would focus on: digitalisation; sustainability (people, planet and prosperity); partnerships with organsiations with shared objectives; safety and security; liberalisation; and promoting the value of air cargo.

Hughes also spoke of some the challenges and opportunities that faced the industry – new market entrants, belly capacity shortages, economic challenges, new entrants, e-commerce and changing supply chains amongst those name checked.