Staying current with ever-changing global, regional, and country-specific regulations to ensure compliance across air cargo operations is a significant challenge for airlines. Yet, supply chain efficiency and cost-effectiveness hinge on all players being compliant every step of the way. Today, screening processes involve considerable human intervention and offline checks that are prone to error and operational bottlenecks. Or worse. How much simpler and more effective could the compliance verification process be if it were automated end-to-end? That´s the value iCargo´s new compliance capabili ..read more

Airline partnerships in air cargo allow carriers to increase their network coverage and capacity utilization. Different partnership models exist with varying levels of commitment, from fixed capacity allocations under interline contracts to joint capacity selling under joint venture agreements. Yet, despite the significant business potential airline partnerships represent, there are far fewer in air cargo than on the passenger side. While multiple large-scale initiatives have been attempted, only a few have withstood the test of time. Most couldn't achieve expected results, commonly due to ope ..read more

These are exciting times to work in air cargo; we have a unique "once-in-a-generation" opportunity to shape the industry's future by resetting its digital foundations. There´s significant room to improve operations in the cargo ecosystem, characterized by legacy standards, overly complex processes, siloed systems patchworks, and workaround solutions. The result? Truncated information flows and systems integrations where critical data is lost or inaccurately interpreted across the shipment lifecycle, leading to inefficiencies and putting compliance at risk. But a brighter future is in the makin ..read more

Not so long ago, air mail was considered the royalty of correspondence. But with the advent of email, instant messaging, and other digital technologies, many predicted air mail´s unretractable demise. Yet, IATA still reports that around 320.4 billion letters and post items continue to be sent every year and air mail cargo plays an essential role in their delivery. Air mail cargo is an important contributor to air cargo and with eCommerce continuing to boom, those numbers show no signs of relenting. And like all things analogue and digital, security is a critical area of attention, in this case ..read more

Communities form the bedrock of civilization and have played a critical role in human evolution. Just as society benefits from the integration of different communities, so does the business world. Communities are not new to the airline industry. Reflecting the success of alliances from the passenger business, various commercially-driven communities also exist in air cargo. But non-commercially focused communities also exist, such as the working groups led by various industry bodies. As the scope of digitalization broadens and its pace accelerates, newer technology-driven communities have emerg ..read more

As cargo airlines accelerate and expand their digital transformation programs to improve how they manage their business, the same trend is beginning to permeate across the wider ecosystem. On the sales and distribution front, airlines know that relying on legacy forms of communicating with freight forwarders and digital marketplaces is unsustainable.  Existing industry standards don't enable seamless integration, real-time exchanges, and richer interactions between value chain stakeholders. They're a limitation to growth, efficiency, productivity, and seamless customer experiences. Forwar ..read more

Anyone who works in the air cargo industry knows how critical ground handling operations are, to ensuring that shipments are efficiently processed through to their end-destination. This is a complex area with many checks, processes, regulations, and stakeholders. It´s also where air cargo carriers and ground-handlers deliver on the customer promise and established service level agreements. Yet, despite accelerated and customer-centric digitalization across most industries, air cargo has been lagging. For decades, ground-handling has relied on outdated messaging standards, processes, and system ..read more

Automation improves operational efficiency by accelerating the processing of repetitive tasks and reducing the risk of human error. From the revenue accounting standpoint, automation also improves revenue recognition through improved quality audits and faster invoicing, accounting, and reconciliation. Let´s explore six key areas where automation generates significant improvement in air cargo revenue accounting. 1. Quality audit  Detecting and correcting errors post invoicing is costly. It's time-consuming and requires a lot of effort between the stakeholders to resolve discrepancies resul ..read more

Technology is transforming air cargo with innovation being injected right across the value chain. But there's one area that's due for little more tender love and care: air cargo payments. It's a complex issue with so many different currencies, systems, processes, and stakeholders to deal with when connecting the dots between shipment origin and destination. And this is why it typically takes 30-45 days for payment remittances to come through after service completion when unexpected surprises don´t appear. But the reality is that unexpected charges can accrue quickly across the different phases ..read more