No hanging around for Lufthansa’s new tech

Lufthansa Cargo is offering its cargo customers self-service terminals and apps for mobile devices as well as the digital transfer of shipment data and status updates as part of its ‘eFreight’ drive to speed up acceptance times.

Before delivery, a PreCheck service verifies the completeness and consistency of the data transferred and helps reduce laborious and time-consuming corrections during cargo acceptance and can help to prevent returns.

After PreCheck, Lufthansa Cargo customers receive an electronic shipment status update and get the green light in real time to deliver or collect their goods. This could eliminate waiting times for drivers in future, which will allow customers to deploy trucks more efficiently. On arrival, drivers can check in at a self-service terminal and get their ramp assignment.

In selected locations, parcels are registered via scanner during cargo acceptance. Smartgate, a fully automated volume scanner, automatically determines the size and weight of the parcels, and this information is compared with the data already to hand.

Lufthansa says the new digital offerings have been “thoroughly put through their paces” during a pilot phase involving about 100 customers. They are now available to customers at the Lufthansa Cargo Centre in Frankfurt and another 15 stations in Germany and abroad, and will be rolled out to further locations in the months ahead.

Lufthansa Cargo vice president global handling management Dr Jan-Wilhelm Breithaupt commented: “We are striding into the digital future of the air cargo industry with our customers – with offerings that are faster, simpler and less error-prone.”