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Airforwarders Association names Steve Smith as CEO

The Airforwarders Association (AfA) has appointed Airlink leader Steve Smith as its new chief executive to take over from Brandon Fried. Fried, who has led the AfA for 21 years and announced his retirement in February, will assist Smith during a transition period, allowing him to assume responsibility for the new role gradually as the AfA continues its advocacy work. Smith brings over 25 years of leadership experience spanning aviation, logistics, and humanitarian response, including 13 years as president and chief executive of Airlink, and a senior commercial role with Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace. "The work of the AfA has rarely been more important, with shifting trade policy, geopolitical disruption, and aging infrastructure adding pressure on supply chains that are already stretched," said Steve Smith, incoming chief executive, Airforwarders Association. "Forwarders need greater predictability as they navigate these pressures, and investment in the infrastructure that keeps it moving. "Over the many years that Brandon and I have known each other, he has built a strong association with an influential voice, and I want to thank him for his dedicated service. "I look forward to working alongside the AfA team, meeting more members, and ensuring forwarders continue to have an effective voice in Washington and across an industry that sits at the center of billions of dollars in global trade every day." At Airlink, Smith grew the organisation from a one-person start-up to a non-profit with revenue of almost $20m, working with more than 50 airlines and logistics companies, and 250 humanitarian groups across 100 countries, responding to more than 200 disasters and crises, and helping more than 80m people in need. During his tenure at Airlink, Smith built the operational framework and infrastructure connecting the aviation industry to humanitarian relief that had not previously existed, shaping how airlines, logistics providers, and aid organizations coordinate crisis response. Smith also directed the organization's response during major global disruptions, including COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine War, the Ebola outbreak, and the 2023 Türkiye earthquake, and has served as a NATO spokesperson and subject matter expert on public and private sector crisis response. "Steve brings extensive aviation and logistics experience, a strong understanding of air cargo, and established relationships across all areas of the industry," said Brandon Fried, outgoing executive director, Airforwarders Association. "He understands the issues affecting the industry and the importance of engaging members, and I am confident he is well-placed to lead the AfA and build on the work we have done over the past two decades." Smith's work has been recognised by former President Bill Clinton at the Clinton Global Initiative, and he is an alumnus of the Presidential Leadership Scholars program, a joint leadership initiative of the presidential centers of George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Lyndon B. Johnson. Additionally, Smith serves on the board of InterAction, the largest U.S. alliance of international NGOs, is a Board Trustee of the Aero Club of Washington, and serves on the advisory board of GoCrisis, a crisis management company.

Hapag-Lloyd ups 2026 profit forecast and submits revised Zim bid

The strong, elongated container shipping peak season this year has led Hapag-Lloyd to add more than $1bn to its 2026 profit outlook. According to an investor note yesterday, its full-year EBITDA guidance has been upgraded, from $2.7bn-$3.7bn, to between $3.9bn and $4.4bn. Guidance for group EBIT has also been revised, to the $1.25bn-$1.75bn range, up from between $100m and $1.1bn. It explained that this was due to "continued strong market demand and the ongoing positive development of spot freight rates", but also warned that "against the backdrop of volatile freight rates and persistent geopolitical challenges, the forecast is subject to a high degree of uncertainty". Nonetheless, the carrier's growing war-chest will give it further financial ammunition to push through its acquisition of Zim's international operations. Details of the German carrier's revised offer for Zim have begun to emerge from Israel - despite its shareholders overwhelmingly voting in favour of a sale, the Israel government has so far refrained from greenlighting the deal via its "Golden Share", on the basis that the proposed network of the new Zim Israel line would be insufficient for the country's supply chains, and that its proposed financing structure would limit its ability to operate in the shipping market. In a series of meetings in Israel at the weekend, Hapag-Lloyd and FIMI Opportunity Funds, the Israeli private equity fund that would own and operate Zim Israel, produced a revised offer that attempted to satisfy the government's concerns. As far as container shipping operations are concerned, Hagag-Lloyd and FIMI vowed to establish a Far East-Israel service alongside an Israel-North America east coast service and two intra-Europe strings, to double the reefer capacity of Zim Israel, and develop an independent IT system for the new firm. However, as a Loadstar Premium analysis of the deal last week suggested, the current concept of Zim Israel operating 16 vessels - 12 owned and four chartered - would not provide sufficient tonnage to operate a Far East-Israel service, if it was to be on a weekly frequency, as well as the other three strings. It remains unclear where the extra tonnage would come from, or how it would be financed. Meanwhile, under the revised proposal, the Israeli state's Golden Share in Zim Israel would be enlarged, with foreign ownership reduced to 10% from 24%. And to satisfy the worries of Zim's highly unionised workforce, there is a commitment to expand the pool of Israeli seafarers, and create a new collective bargaining agreement with workers that "will ensure employment continuity for the vast majority of Zim's current employees, with a safety net for ten years", according to Israeli business publication Calcalist. Previous reports have suggested the deal could result in the loss of some 200 jobs at Zim, although FIMI has reportedly offered "generous conditions for voluntary retirement and a commitment to avoid layoffs by the end of 2027". Hapag-Lloyd and FIMI are due to present the revisions in detail within the next 45 days.

US forwarders call for action after Monday's flight disruption

The US Airforwarders Association (AfA) has called for action after a communication failure resulted in the grounding of flights in the northeast of the country on Monday. The AfA said the outage resulted in the cancellation or delay of around 7,000 flights and disrupted cargo operations. This highlighted the need for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to implement Government Accountability Office (GAO) recommendations to strengthen aviation communications resilience. "The FAA has identified serious threats to critical aviation systems, but this report makes clear that it has not completed the basic risk assessments or built the monitoring needed to address them," said AfA executive director Brandon Fried. "That is not good enough when the threats facing aviation are becoming more sophisticated, and the consequences of failure can spread across airports, airlines, freight networks, and the wider economy." The AfA said the GAO report identified significant gaps in the protection of aviation communications systems, that the FAA had not completed risk and mitigation assessments for identified spectrum-related threats, including spoofing and jamming, and lacked a defined capability to continuously monitor and detect such threats. The report was published on the same day that the communications equipment failures caused widespread disruption across the US northeast that saw the FAA issue ground stops affecting major airports including Philadelphia International, Newark Liberty International, John F. Kennedy International, and LaGuardia. This happened as world leaders arrived in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, the AfA pointed out. The three major New York airports affected by the outage handled more than 2.2m tons of cargo last year. "While Monday's disruption was not reported as a cyberattack, it showed how quickly problems with critical communications infrastructure can cascade across the aviation system," said Fried. "We cannot afford to wait for a malicious actor to exploit a weakness before treating resilience as an urgent priority." The GAO issued nine recommendations covering risk management, threat monitoring, information sharing, authentication, and data protection, all of which the Department of Transportation has agreed with, the AfA said. "The FAA now has a clear set of recommendations and no reason to wait; it must now close these gaps before they are exploited and invest in our ageing infrastructure," said Fried.