Entrepreneur built family business into top-10 German forwarder while creating IGLU alliance that secured volume rates for smaller players
The founder of German family-owned freight forwarder Quick Cargo Service (QCS), Dieter Haltmayer, has passed away at the age of 91.
Haltmayer was a well-known and respected personality in the airfreight industry having founded QCS more than 50 years ago.
”Dieter Haltmayer was not only the founder of a company, but the founder of values that shaped generations of logistics professionals,” the company said. ”What began as a vision built on trust, precision, and personal responsibility grew into a European logistics group shaped by strong relationships and dedicated people.
“Throughout his life, he stood for integrity, long-term thinking, and partnership. He believed that success is built not only on performance, but on relationships with customers, partners, and employees alike.
“His entrepreneurial spirit, leadership, and dedication created a foundation that continues to guide us today. His legacy lives on in the company he built and in the people he inspired.”
Tributes to Haltmayer poured in on social media, with friends and colleagues describing him as a pioneer, legend and visionary leader.
Haltmayer set up QCS in 1974, reaching out to smaller players across the German market to build up traffic.
Realising the importance of global reach, he next teamed up with an old business contact in Hong Kong to develop traffic between Germany and the nascent Asian export juggernaut.
He was also willing to speak out on issues that mattered to him, which brought some of his comments to the pages of Air Cargo News.
Beyond drawing attention to matters on hand, such as Lufthansa’s introduction of fuel surcharges, this also raised awareness of the German forwarder among readers and sparked new business contacts.
His commitment to improving processes and exploring new paths, as well as a continuous focus on developing up-and-coming talent, earned him the award for outstanding contributions to the air cargo industry in 2010.
Ten years earlier, he had created a force of minnows in the German airfreight market. Market leader Lufthansa had concentrated primarily on large forwarders amidst predictions of the demise of smaller players.
By then at the helm of a mid-sized player, Haltmayer invited other SME forwarders to a meeting where he floated the idea of pooling airfreight and building up pallets that could be loaded straight onto planes.
Out of 75 German agents that attended the meeting, five signed up to the neutral Interessengemeinschaft Luftfracht (IGLU), which became one of the top players in the market.
Nearly a quarter of a century later, it is still going, with around 25 participants who enjoy volume discounts that would be out of reach for many individual members.
As befits a successful mid-sized forwarder, Haltmayer was approached multiple times about selling QCS, but he always declined, looking to keep the business in the family.
He passed on the baton to a newly created management board where his son Stephan took control of sales and marketing and is now chief executive, while his sisters, Heidi and Jennifer, look after operations, finance and marketing.
Today, they run a company that has become one of the top 10 privately owned forwarders in Germany.
