Air cargo needs to be faster, cheaper and more innovative

Air cargo operations of the future will need to be faster, offer better data integration, improve the quality of service and offer lower costs than today’s offerings.
Speaking at freight forwarder association Fiata’s World Congress event, United Airlines vice president cargo sales Jacques Leijssenaar took on the question of what businesses of the future will demand from air cargo.
“We need to anticipate the challenges of tomorrow,” he said. “We need to deliver quality; quality is the name of the game.
“We need to be reliable for our customers, speed of availability needs to be increased, costs need to be decreased, we must improve data and access to data and provide new services.”
Leijssenaar said one way to meet some of these challenges was to speed up the ground transport of air cargo, which his statistics show accounts for around 70% of air cargo’s transit time.
“Since time is air cargo’s primary advantage we cannot afford not to innovate in this area and what we need is the spirit of entrepreneurship to encourage all participants in the supply chain to increase efficiency.”
He added that air cargo needed to be as innovative as possible if it wants to attract young people to the industry, as they are excited and enthusiastic about new technologies and will be attracted to other industries if they see air transport as old fashioned.