Air cargo faces a sex change

HAVE you noticed that women are – at last – making a significant invasion of the upper ecehelons of air cargo management.
In this past 12 months, we have been delighted to report the appointments of around a dozen or so women into senior air cargo-related roles, all around the world too.
We always make a point of trying to promote them in the pages of Air Cargo News, or on our website and eNewsletter, not because we are a sexist lot, but simply because in this male-dominated and chauvinistic industry, any successful female is probably twice as good as her male predecessor.
Women now fill top positions in the Middle East and Latin America, in Asia and in Europe, in the USA and in Moslem countries too.
Increasingly, females are taking big roles in finance, general management, operations and marketing, at airlines, forwarders, ground handlers and integrators.
So, at the risk of being physically removed from the office, taken outside and shot at dawn by my female ACN colleagues (yes, we have women here too), I am reminded of a story which a crusty old freight forwarder once related to me. If you like, it’s a warning to men to buck their ideas up.
It concerns an airline man who was walking along a California beach and stumb-led across an old lamp. He picked it up and rubbed it and out popped a genie who announced: “OK, OK. You freed me from the lamp, blah blah. This is the fourth time this month, and I’m getting a little sick of these wishes, so you can forget about three. You get only one wish!”
The airline man sat and thought about it for a while and then came up with: “I’ve always wanted to go to Hawaii, but I’m fed up with flying and I get very seasick. Could you build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can drive over there to visit?”
The genie laughed and replied: “That’s impossible. Think of the logistics of that! How would the supports ever reach the bottom of the Pacific? Think of how much concrete, how much steel?! No. Think of another wish.”
The airline man tried to think of a really good alternative. Finally, he blurted out: “I’ve been married and divorced four times. My wives always said that I don’t care and that I’m insensitive.
“So, I wish that I could und-erstand women, know how they feel inside and what they’re thinking when they give me the silent treatment; know why they’re crying, know what they really want when they say ‘nothing’, know how to make them happy….”
The genie asked: “You want a bridge with two lanes or four?”