Making cargo cheeky for 20 years

A MAGAZINE about cargo is in the unlikely position of having brought letters of outrage from women and pleas from men as far away as Eastern Europe for subscriptions. Signed copies by its cover girls are almost collectors' items, while Hongkong's equivalent of Hugh Hefner, head of the Playboy empire, sighs and says: ''My first day in the job I had to go through between 40 and 50 portfolios to decide on the next cover girl.'' Tough work. ''Hugh'' is really Andrew Herdman, general manager for Cathay Pacific Cargo, who spends most of his time spearheading the sale of cargo space which last year earned the airline $500 million in revenue. But his other duty is to head an extraordinary trade magazine with the most unlikely name of Cargo Clan, a full-colour, glossy publication which manages to mix pull-out pin-ups known as ''freight mates'' with news of pallets, perishables and other industry news. There isn't an airline office, airport, forwarder or shipper that has not seen or heard of Cargo Clan. ''I had a request last year from a professor in Eastern Europe who said he taught English to freight forwarders and they had told him of Cargo Clan. He wanted to know if he could subscribe,'' said Mr Herdman. ''And it doesn't matter where I am in the world, as soon as I say I am head of Cathay Cargo they think my number one task is to select and interview the magazine cover girl.'' Mr Herdman describes the magazine, which has a circulation of 12,000, as ''tongue-in-cheek, but always retaining a certain integrity''. The magazine will celebrate its 20th birthday this year and it has been both tongue-in cheek, and indeed cheeky, from the start. The person credited with creating Cargo Clan was the then cargo manager, Paul Jurgensen, noted for his mischievous wit. ''Traditionally the air cargo industry is seen as dull, brown boxes on pallets. Paul went out to spice it up,'' said Mr Herdman. Although he wasn't to know it at the time, the magazine proved a promotional masterstroke. In the editorial of the first edition in summer 1973, the editor, a Miss E.P.T. - which Mr Herdman says stood for Extra Personal Touch, referring to Cathay's cargo philosophy - said: ''For years the glamour of the aviation industry has centred around the passenger market, the pilots and the gorgeous air hostesses. ''The cargo people have been left behind in their warehouses, dingy offices and agencies, generally hidden away from the public eye in the least attractive part of the airport premises. ''We think this is a grave injustice. The cargo people - though their fingernails may be blackened by air waybill carbon [note no EDI in those days] and bitten to the bone by nervous tension - deserve in our opinion the highest recognition, since without them many a firm in the aviation industry would collapse on its face. ''The Cargo Clan is the World's First Great Leap Forward towards the ultimate aim of bringing the golden rays of glamour into the dull and miserable lives of the misunderstood cargo people. The Cargo Clan is an exclusive club for cargo people.'' There was no pin up on the front, but details of the first Miss Cargo Clan appeared on the back. By edition number two, pretty girls were on the cover, and it has never looked back. . . Except once, and that was when they had a never-to-be-repeated Mr Cargo Clan competition. Cathay receives complaints from women that the magazine is sexist. The correspondents are duly given the opportunity to cancel their subscription. ''What I found interesting looking through the early editions was that while hairstyles and fashions have changed, the issues of the day in the industry have not,'' said Mr Herdman. ''Like today, cargo people were complaining of being second-class citizens to the passenger people, airlines pleaded there was not enough space to go round while forwarders complained they could never get space when they wanted it. ''Airlines were being accused of going direct to shippers and there was a plea for more rational rate structures. So what's new? Certainly not the love-hate relationship between airlines and forwarders.'' In the early days of Cargo Clan, 747 freighters were just being introduced and the big debate was whether they would prove profitable. Cathay was flying 707s and introducing its Tristar fleet. High-value products carried in the belly were pocket calculators and Kodak instamatic cameras. Barry Grindrod is editor of Payload Asia magazine.