Cargo Pulse

Why is digitalization important? First question we should think to answer is who’s it important for? Who’s the one most benefited by this digitalization and therefore pushing for this to become a reality, who’s the stakeholder behind this need?

One clear winner of the air freight industry’s battle against COVID disruption was digitalisation.

Stakeholders’ rapid investment in tailor made software, as old processes were rendered redundant in a lockdown world, restored and improved the efficient, quick, and accurate communication channels required.

In turbulent times, the strong survive. And the gap between digitally empowered companies those who use linear, paper-based processes is only getting bigger. Because they continuously raise the bar for service quality, transparency and compliance.

In the next five years, we see digitalization enabling Air Cargo businesses to use data-driven insights to understand customer preferences and improve their customer experience with real-time data streams for a digitized cargo management system as well as Air Cargo ecosystem.

Air Canada Cargo didn’t wait for the pandemic to hit in March 2020 to begin evolving its business. The airline was already on the path towards digitization, converting data to a digital format. Digitized data, used to automate processes, can make data more accessible and create operational efficiencies. A good example is the ongoing support to promote the use of IATA’s e-AWB throughout the industry, reducing the need for paper air waybills.

There is a phrase that’s states “when the going gets tough the tough gets going” … in the air cargo context the equivalent phrase would be “when the going gets tough the tough get innovating” and this is the fundamental basis of how the industry has approached technology in the last three years, since the outbreak of Covid forced the industry to work differently, to collaborate differently and to interact differently.

A friend of mine likes to say that the world’s biggest challenges are also an entrepreneur’s greatest opportunities – and our industry is certainly in challenging times.

Entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand. It is hard to create something no one else has done before and do this against the traditions of an established industry. It takes fresh new thinking, and use of new technologies to create your prototypes, modeling and testing as well as new partnerships in engineering, design, and finance.

Over this year, CargoAi has continued to remain true to our mission to bring the best available technologies to airfreight; while leveraging our unique position between demand and supply in air freight procurement, to continue to drive the enablement of an efficient and connected airfreight ecosystem.

As warnings of a global recession spread, we need to continue to focus on market trends.
Global air cargo volume – known as an early indicator for consumer products demand – has slumped since early 2022, showing a 5% decline Year To Date after an initial strong recovery in 2020 and 2021.