The pandemic showed that, despite the environment we live in, we’re pretty resilient as South Africans.In this country, there’s always some sort of disruption. It’s either a power struggle, or there’s load-shedding, no water supply, or both.Thankfully we’re robust.If you can survive what we have survived over the last few years, I think you can survive almost anything in the world.On a recent break in the Karoo, when I drove through those little dorps, it renewed my confidence in South Africa – that there are good people out there and they just want things to work.In cities like Jo'burg and Durban, there is a lot of negativity, but out there, across South Africa as a whole, there are still a lot of solid people who are willing to do whatever they can to make our country work.You only need to look at Europe and ask yourself whether you want to be there at the moment, considering the building energy crisis they have. Deals were made there years ago with regard to power provision – and now several countries in the EU have been caught with their pants down.Electricity in many instances has gone up as much as 30%, and up to half of the people spread across Europe can’t afford it.Then there’s the States. Whether you’re pro-Trump or against him, he could find himself back in power in 2024. So who knows what the future really holds? I think the key is being resilient and resourceful, having the ability to adapt and reconfigure your business model if needs be – quick ly.It’s part of the DNA at Aero Africa. We were only getting started as a new outfit when Covid came and knocked the stuffing out of absolutely everything.We didn’t have our launch to announce us to the market but went away anyway and bought a lot of block space agreements. We subsequently started selling these to a lot of contacts accumulated over 30 years of networking in the neutral airfreight business.We were nimble enough to be a little in front of some of the bigger companies and started offering them space out of places like Amsterdam to Johannesburg. They needed overf low space for urgent cargo and we were very successful with it.Next was cargo ex-China into South Africa, accessing the east and west African markets through Kenya and Ghana, and we’re also putting a model together for the US.With so much at stake, it’s very important to be as prepared as possible for next year, especially considering that it’s widely thought 2023 is going to be a very tough year.Volume dropping off the way it did, for example, wasn’t expected, and no one knew why that was the case. The rand weakening the way it did over a period of time obviously was a major factor, especially for imports.Covid f laring up in certain locations also affected supplies intended for airfreight into 14 50th Anniversary Edition January 2023yearsSouth Africa.So I think we’re going to keep on being tested, with opportunities changing from one month to the next. It means that we have to get used to doing things differently. The traditional ways of doing airfreight have changed forever because of Covid.Post the PPE phase of the pandemic, we need to remain creative about how to do business, and we have to create partnerships, to a certain extent with your opposition, to make it viable to run a trade route.Operators, airlines, ground handling agents – we all have to learn how to work together.Private-sector lobbying groups like the ACOC and others have to work together and apply more pressure on the authorities over things like the recent shortage of aviation fuel at OR Tambo International Airport.We need to break out of the original mould of thinking and be tough-minded enough to add integrity to investment. In Kenya we launched during an election year – despite the consensus that uncertainty about the future means you shouldn’t launch a new venture when you don’t know what tomorrow might bring.But we persuaded our investors that it was a good call; that supplies from China, Europe and the US would f lood back into East Africa after Covid. Now that things are beginning to settle down, shipments are beginning to come back in again because there’s faith in the Kenyan economy.I think that will hold true for other markets as well. We have to buck trends, get involved, and do things differently.Change really is the only constant, but you have to have faith to get ahead.
