Do the cargo shuffle: transloading process helps Anchorage to be near apex in cargo shipping.

• Author: Grenn, Ben
• Position: ALASKA BUSINESS MONTHLY'S 2007 TRANSPORTATION SECTION

Picture you and your family and some close friends heading out together on a mini-vacation across country. You decide to meet at a pre-destined stop. Now all the children and some your vacation gear switch vehicles. Hardly anyone who was traveling together from the point of origin is still with its original vehicle.

You have just transloaded. Only you didn't even realize it. That's how it works in the cargo business.

That roll of Charmin (that you weren't supposed to squeeze)--or that boxed, easy-to-fix Japanese lunch you had last Friday--were most likely items that eventually wound up on your grocers' shelves via a process called transloading or crossloading.

"The type of payloads that are exchanged doesn't matter. What does matter is that the cargo gets transferred, the planes land at their scheduled destinations and that the goods get offloaded and eventually distributed," said Mort Plumb Jr., director of Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport.

It's a little like the pea and shell game, only there's no guessing, no illusion and no slight-of-hand movement. In transloading or crossloading, it's a matter of air carriers transferring cargo from one airline to another and each carrier packing somewhat of a different payload than what it originally started with. There's a pea under every shell.

It's a form of networking ... only with cargo.

THE HOW AND THE WHY

Transloading or crossloading came about through government action. In 1996, the U.S. Department of Transportation granted expanded opportunities to air cargo carriers and then-Anchorage International Airport. These provisions provide great flexibility for air cargo operators, whether or not the specific provisions of any bilateral aviation agreement with a foreign carrier's home country provide for these types of air cargo transfers. Currently, Northwest Airlines, Korean Airlines, China Air Cargo, Japan Airlines and Transmile Air have established major transloading operations in Anchorage.

"Because of Anchorage's strategic location and--the availability of transfer partners--it makes Anchorage a viable transloading hub," said Plumb. "Giving the carriers the ability to depart here (Anchorage) with full payloads to one market is a substantial advantage."

Under the original 1996 USDOT order, Alaska and Hawaii were the only airports permitted to allow transloading. Recently, Guam has been added but the USDOT has restricted the foreign countries that may participate, including Japan...