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...
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...
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...
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 For decades, ground-handling has relied on outdated messaging standards, processes, and system...
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...