SHORT SHOTS

cargo.one goes USA with American Airlines as its inaugural partner

American Airlines and cargo.one have embarked on a strategic partnership which will see the airline’s cargo capacities being offered on cargo.one ex Europe to begin with, this summer, and then subsequently globally. American freight forwarders can sign up for more information already and for the waitlist for when real-time bookings ex USA also go live.

Jessica Tyler, President Cargo and Vice President Operations Innovation and Delivery explained the airline’s decision: “We continually look for ways to enhance our digital capabilities and offer more solutions to our customers, always aiming to exceed their expectations. This partnership with cargo.one is a strategic way for us to make our cargo capacity more accessible within the industry, and we’re really excited about that. With cargo.one, our customers will have immediate, real-time access to solutions to meet their transport needs.”
American Airlines last year completed a major internal digital transformation, dramatically scaling back its complex IT eco-system of circa 100 systems to just 10, and was looking for an online booking solution to match the increasing customer base and requirements for reliable, real-time capacity information and a clear overview of routes and services available. “I’m a strong believer that the cargo industry must continue to innovate to enable us to engage with our customers in a more personal, and definitely a far more efficient way.  Flexibility and speed are more important than ever, and the industry needs to continue to find ways to quickly adapt. With cargo.one’s customer-centric approach, American Airlines Cargo is in an even better position to match those requirements,” she added.

Moritz Claussen, Founder and Managing Director of cargo.one, stated: “What better way to pioneer our footprint in America, than with American Airlines? With American Airlines Cargo as a launch partner, we are kicking off a new era of customer-centric air cargo sales in North America, manifesting our ambition to become the go-to platform for freight forwarders in the U.S. and beyond.”
The airline is cargo.one's first U.S.-based airline partner, and the booking platform is rapidly implementing its global expansion for which it received USD 60 million in two funding rounds last year.

Air Canada Cargo unveils route network for new B767-300ER freighters

Air Canada Cargo, which has carried out over 9,000 cargo-only passenger flights since MAR20, deploying its wide-body passenger aircraft as well as certain temporarily modified Boeing 777 and Airbus A330 aircraft, has discovered the joys of true freight. Thus, towards the end of last year, it successfully concluded a collective agreement amendment with its pilots represented by the Air Canada Pilots Association for contractual changes to allow it to competitively operate dedicated freighters, and decided to arrange for the full conversion of a number of its 30 B767-300 aircraft. The first two of these are due to be delivered towards the end of this year, with more to follow in 2022. The airline last week unveiled the planned network for its new freighter fleet. Operating mainly out of Toronto Pearson International Airport, they will serve Miami, Quito, Lima, Mexico City, and Guadalajara. The latter destination is a premiere for Air Canada Cargo. From early 2022, more destinations will be offered as additional freighters come into service – these include Halifax, St. John's, Madrid, and Frankfurt.

Jason Berry, Vice President, Cargo at Air Canada declared: “These freighters will provide long-term stability and growth for our cargo customers, in particular the freight forwarding community who require reliable air freight capacity year-round. They will allow us to continue building on the success of our cargo-only flights and are an important part of our future growth. I am excited to have these aircraft enter service, a milestone for Air Canada Cargo that also opens up a world of opportunities for us and our customers.”
Those opportunities are sought in the transport of automotive and aerospace parts, oil and gas equipment, pharmaceuticals, perishables, as well as handling the growing demand for fast, reliable shipment of e-commerce goods, the airline expects.

Cargo iQ welcomes two new board members

Two new Board members were formally welcomed last month, at a Cargo iQ's Working Group: Fedor Novikov, Marketing Director, Volga-Dnepr Group, (replacing Mark Albrecht, Director-Cargo Logistics, Compliance, Finance, United Airlines) and Clark Fritzsch, Global Head of Business Process Management – Airfreight, Hellmann (replacing Markus Muecke, Managing Director, Im3pact AG, since he has taken up the position of advisor for the Board) are the two newcomers joining Henrik Ambak, re-elected as Chair of Cargo iQ, and Senior Vice President, Cargo Operations Worldwide, Emirates SkyCargo, and Kerstin Strauss, also re-elected as Vice Chair of Cargo iQ, and Vice President, Air Logistics Operations, Global Air Logistics at Kuehne+Nagel, as the Board of the air cargo interest group. Further, Emanuel Hille, Director eCargo Solutions, CHAMP Cargosystems replaced Laurent Jossa, CHAMP Cargosystems, as an observer of the Board.
In total, the Cargo iQ Board consists of 13 voting members, including representatives from Agility Logistics, Air France-KLM-Martinair, AirBridgeCargo, Cargomind (Austria), Cathay Pacific, DB Schenker, DHL Global Forwarding, Emirates SkyCargo, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, Kuehne+Nagel, Lufthansa Cargo, Qatar Airways Cargo and Swissport International, supported by observer CHAMP Cargosystems and advisor Im3Pact. The interest group counts 64 members and is a collaborative, multi-stakeholder, supply-chain community aimed at continuously improving the air cargo customer experience.

Novikov stated: “For the last 18 months, the role of air cargo has been more visible as the entire cargo industry delivered vital supplies across the globe in the battle against the Covid-19 spread. Now it is time to scale up initiatives and implement projects and plans aimed at further enhancing the quality of the supply chain.”

Fritzsch’s opinion was: “As the airfreight community has been quite fragmented in terms of standards in quality control and transparency, joining the one interest group that is fully committed to finding a solution across most participants within the airfreight supply chain is the best way in pushing this industry into the '23rd [sic] century'.”
Cargo iQ’s agenda which will be reflected on in NOV21, includes a number of sub-working groups tackling topics such as Cargo Messaging, Care Protocols, Smart Data, and adapting Cargo iQ's Audit process, all with the goal of improving reporting and data quality.

PayCargo being paid USD 125 million following Series B investment

Just nine months ago, the global venture capital and private equity firm, Insight Partners invested USD 35 million in the fintech innovator, PayCargo, in a Series A Round. The Series B round has now netted PayCargo USD 125 from the same investor, reflecting the impressive 250% increase in payments anticipated to be processed by the cloud-based platform in 2021 as compared to 2020: USD 10 billion are forecast. “PayCargo is the largest independent freight payments network of its kind with over 67,000 active users remitting and receiving payments on the platform and thousands more joining each month,” the press release reads. Those users come from all across the logistics industry predominantly in North America, though the platform is rapidly expanding in Europe and other regions. It integrates with more than 20 leading Transport Management Systems, Enterprise Resource Planning, and Terminal Operating Systems used in Ocean, Air, Rail, and Trucking fractions.

“The incredible growth PayCargo has experienced since our initial investment is a testament to the confidence the industry has in their platform,” said Ryan Hinkle, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “We are thrilled to continue our partnership with Eduardo and team to pursue excellence for their global customers through new and exciting digital payment tools.”

“PayCargo was founded on the vision of building a modern freight payment network that lowers transaction costs, accelerates cargo release, and increases business agility and growth across the entire supply chain,” said Eduardo Del Riego, Visionary and Chief Executive Officer of PayCargo. “We are excited to accelerate our mission to bring modern payment solutions to our increasingly global base of customers.”
PayCargo will continue to invest in tech updates and innovations such as advanced real-time customer reporting and invoicing, new workflow tools to streamline partial payments and reconciliation, advance payments, and automated refunds in any currency.

“Working with Insight Partners, we have doubled our team and developed new cutting-edge solutions as well as new partnerships, continuing to support the freight industry through this challenging last year,” said Thomas Vieweg, Global Chief Growth Officer, PayCargo. “This next round of investment will ensure we continue to grow and expand into new markets with a focus on security and data protection, to fit every part of the supply chain.”

Finnair Cargo e-boards onto CargoAi

Finnair Cargo which drives an intense digital agenda and has invested heavily in digital and technological innovations to offer a best-in-class air cargo shipping process, has now partnered with CargoAi to offer its worldwide capacities on the digital booking platform. The Nordic’s and Baltic’s largest air cargo carrier which serves more than 100 European, 19 Asian, and 8 American destinations, can now be e-quoted and e-booked via the SaaS platform.

“We're very proud to partner with Finnair Cargo, which is a pioneering cargo carrier in the field of digitalization and was one of the first to put APIs in place. The airline's network and its product expertise fully meet the needs of our forwarder clients – so this is excellent news for them,” said Matthieu Petot, CEO of CargoAi.

“Making our capacity offering available on CargoAi guarantees visibility and is fully in line with our digitalization strategy for our sales process. With CargoAi, we have been moving fast with the integration and we are very happy to be able to provide this service to our customers. We speak the same language and the cargo challenges we face are fully understood and integrated into the tool,” said Karri Kauppi, Head of Revenue and Pricing, Finnair Cargo.

Chop-chop choppers from Poland to the Philippines

In a repeat performance, Antonov Airlines once again uplifted five S-70i Black Hawk helicopters to the Philippines. The initial transport of five such helicopters, completed in NOV20, was destined to Clark Air Base, north of the Philippine capital, Manila. The second shipment under a government-to-government agreement, took place last week. At a total weight of 35 tons (including loading equipment), the shipment was not of the usual kind of weight that the airline deals with, but its special loading skills were required to ensure the safe loading, stowage, and transport of the Polish-built military helicopters. Each S-70i helicopter measured 17.52 m in length, 3.2 m in width, and 3.9 m in height, weighing in at 5.6 tons. The AN-124-100’s winches were deployed to load the pieces according to detailed loading and unloading plans that had been developed by Antonov Airlines' in-house engineers. The loading process took five hours, and the freight then flew safely, directly from Rzeszów, Poland, to Angeles in the Philippines.

“Although the total payload in terms of weight was quite light for our aircraft – loading five helicopters safely and transporting them without damage takes considerable collaboration. We have been working closely with Sikorsky as well as their logistics supplier Helicopter International Shipping Services (HISS) for several months to ensure that all current and future program requirements are met,” said Amnon Ehrlich, Director North America – Aerospace, Government, and Defence Programs.

LATAM: Containers and Conversions

LATAM Cargo has been busy this week, ensuring it remains successful in the cargo market. It extended its ULD management partnership with Unilode to 2028, which will bring the collaboration up to 12 years in total. The extension includes the establishment of a new Unilode ULD repair shop in São Paulo, Brazil, by January 2022, as well as the provision of digital services and sensory data to LATAM Cargo and its customers. Juan Pablo Marquez, Operational Support Director, LATAM Cargo, said: “Unilode's ULD supply has enabled LATAM to continue its operations during these challenging times and the transition to more durable and lighter containers will provide our company with significant sustainability benefits. We are pleased to grow together with our trusted ULD management partner as the aviation industry continues its recovery following the Covid-19 crisis.”
Mr. Babak Yazdani, Managing Director ULD Solutions, Unilode, said: “LATAM Cargo is one of Unilode's largest ULD management customers and a strategic account in our portfolio as its footprint in Latin America and worldwide network provide substantial synergies in Unilode's global ULD pool for the benefit of our other customers as well. Our goal is to enable LATAM to deliver revenue-generating opportunities provided by Unilode's ULD management, repair and digital solutions, and contribute to their growth in the years to come.”

LATAM Cargo also teamed up with DRAKKAR Aerospace & Ground Transportation affiliate, Avianor, to carry out certified temporary cargo modifications at LATAM’s Santiago facilities on three of its B767 – the same company that had reconfigured some of its B767 and B777 planes. A total of around ten B767 are planned to be permanently converted to cargo over the next few years.

Marie-Christine Huberdeau, Interiors Sales Vice-President at Avianor, declared: “We are proud to work jointly with LATAM Cargo on our first temporary cargo modification on the Boeing 767, an alternate and cost-effective solution to maintain operations and generate revenues. The payback is so short that it makes it the perfect solution.”

Kamal Hadad, LATAM Cargo's Network and Alliances Director illustrated: “The implementation of Avianor’s temporary cargo modification was a rapid: in less than 12 weeks we materialized three aircrafts. There was an excellent and collaborative teamwork that managed to reach the success, in such difficult times as a pandemic. All modified aircraft are in operation and without complications. The road is not yet finished, and we are still working together on improvements cabin payload.”