{"podcast":{"title":"The Freight Buyers' Club","slug":"the-freight-buyers-club-5997309","podcast_index_feed_id":5997309,"rss_url":"https://feeds.castos.com/2n9kq","website_url":"https://thefreightbuyersclub.com/","image_url":"https://episodes.castos.com/63bfb95e422709-98786477/images/0857-006-3000x3000.jpg","author":"Mike King","episode_count":148,"summary":"The Freight Buyers’ Club podcast is a new home for anyone with a professional interest in international trade, container shipping, procurement, logistics and air cargo. Each episode your host, award-winning journalist Mike King, will be speaking to leading decision-makers, analysts, journalists, operators and shippers to get their take on current freight and logistics markets and the challenges and opportunities ahead. You can subscribe to receive each episode direct to your inbox at: thefreightbuyersclub.com","last_synced_at":"2026-07-14T02:18:08.829520+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-freight-buyers-club-5997309"},"episode":{"title":"Emirates Legend Ram Menen on Gulf War III and the Future of Gulf Air Cargo Hubs","slug":"emirates-legend-ram-menen-on-gulf-war-iii-and-the-future-of-gulf-air-cargo-hubs","published_at":"2026-04-23T10:59:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-freight-buyers-club-5997309/emirates-legend-ram-menen-on-gulf-war-iii-and-the-future-of-gulf-air-cargo-hubs","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-freight-buyers-club-5997309","url":"https://the-freight-buyers-club.castos.com/episodes/emirates-legend-ram-menen-on-gulf-war-iii-and-the-future-of-gulf-air-cargo-hubs","audio_url":"https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/episodes.castos.com/63bfb95e422709-98786477/2428957/c1e-6z81wf778r3fndodq-ww4xqx2raz95-99d6cc.mp3","summary":"Gulf air cargo hubs have taken a serious hit since the Middle East war began. The world's most strategically positioned freight network is under pressure - and the industry wants to know if it comes back. In this segment from the latest Air Cargo Unpacked, Mike King and Neel Jones Shah sit down with Ram Menen - the man who spent nearly 28 years building Emirates SkyCargo and helped make Dubai one of the great global freight hubs - to ask the question the whole industry is asking: do the Gulf hubs come back, and how long does it take? Together they cover the hub geography, the belly cargo and passenger confidence question, how this crisis ranks against Gulf War I, 9/11, SARS and COVID, whether forwarders building alternative routes creates a permanent market shift, and why Ram believes air cargo recovers faster than ocean shipping. Ram's verdict: Gulf War III. Temporary setback, not existential crisis. The full episode also features exclusive air cargo rate analysis from TAC Index, calculating agent for the Baltic Exchange Baltic Air Freight Indices, plus Bachi Spiga from DHL Express Middle East and North Africa on how DHL kept every country in the region served from day two of the conflict. Full episode: ▶️ YouTube: https://youtu.be/YQROEd_DSAc Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5OW32v9r8ZVejCWJ5oiB8r?si=beb29a01eeaf414b Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/air-cargo-unpacked-middle-east-war-fuel-crisis-capacity/id1668766055?i=1000761786379 thefreightbuyersclub.com: https://www.thefreightbuyersclub.com/podcast/air-cargo-unpacked-middle-east-war-fuel-crisis-capacity-disruption-and-global-fallout/ Produced with the support of Ontegos Cloud, freight forwarder profitability specialists: https://www.ontegos.cloud/ #AirCargo #AirFreight #MiddleEast #G…","meta_description":"Gulf air cargo hubs have taken a serious hit since the Middle East war began. The world's most strategically positioned freight network is under pressure…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1327,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-freight-buyers-club-5997309/episodes/emirates-legend-ram-menen-on-gulf-war-iii-and-the-future-of-gulf-air-cargo-hubs/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-freight-buyers-club-5997309/emirates-legend-ram-menen-on-gulf-war-iii-and-the-future-of-gulf-air-cargo-hubs.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}