Freightos launches airfreight rate and booking portal
13 / 06 / 2019
Freightos has today launched a new online pricing and booking portal for airfreight as the digitisation of the sector continues to gather pace.
The free WebCargo Sky platform is available to IATA certified airfreight forwarders and as well as offering instant pricing from more than 370 airlines, will allow forwarders to book “real-time capacity” on British Airways, Iberia, Air France KLM and Lufthansa.
“Air cargo connectivity is at a tipping point and WebCargo Sky makes it accessible to any forwarder. As the industry’s most comprehensive e-Booking platform, Sky automates pricing from hundreds of airlines, even those without automated pricing, enabling industry-wide connectivity,” said WebCargo CEO Manel Galindo.
Zvi Schreiber, CEO of the Freightos Group, added: “By 2020, air cargo will routinely be priced dynamically and booked digitally. By providing WebCargo Sky for free to air forwarders, there are zero barriers for forwarders and airlines to communicate online through WebCargo. This will provide better service to air shippers, including capacity visibility on specific flights”
The company said that beta users report saving over one hour per salesperson per day, “reducing costs and enabling sales teams to focus on customer service”.
“Meanwhile, airlines benefit from accessing the world’s largest online network of forwarders as a sales channel and reduce 85% of time spent managing sales,” it added.
“Ultimately shippers will benefit most with air cargo becoming more affordable and predictable.”
The overall WebCargo rate portal was launched in 2008 and claims to have more than 1,400 logistics providers signed up.
The WebCargo platform is not the only portal targeting the airfreight forwarding community – cargo.one has also be signing up airlines and forwarders to its system.
Live booking on aircraft relies on forwarders and airlines utilising APIs to connect their systems, an often time-consuming and technically complicated task that can take months.
While larger airlines and larger forwarders are willing to work together to develop these connections because of the volumes they control, small and medium players are often overlooked.
Portals like WebCargo and cargo.one therefore give SME forwarders access to live bookings on aircraft, while airlines only need to connect once in order to reach a wider market.
