Qatar Airways Cargo said it has made available its capacity to more countries via the online booking portal WebCargo citing how it received a large number of bookings through the platform since it launched in February this year.

In a statement, the carrier said from June 30, all countries in the European region — excluding Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Russia, Slovakia and Slovenia — would be able to use the online booking platform to book capacity on its plane. 

In February, Qatar Airways offered its capacity via WebCargo to users in France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, South Africa and Spain.

With the implementation of WebCargo across Europe, the total count of countries in the airline’s network on the platform will increase to 32. 

Global rollout this year

The airline said this will allow customers to further digitalise their experience with the airline in the region, resulting in more process efficiencies and faster market responses. 

"We are glad to further roll out the third-party eBooking platform, WebCargo throughout Europe, as we aim to provide digital connectivity for our customers and extend digitalisation across our operations," said Qatar Airways Chief Officer Cargo, Guillaume Halleux, adding that this will bring in more efficiencies in the supply chain.

"Our aim is to gradually roll out WebCargo throughout our global network during the year, providing convenience and transparency to our customers," he added.

Zvi Schreiber, CEO Freightos Group said the "hypergrowth of our eBookings in the last few months (up 1,000% year on year) has proven that forwarders are very keen to adopt real-time pricing, capacity, and eBookings, particularly in today's volatile market."

"Ultimately, this allows them to deliver better air cargo to importers/exporters. With today's significant expansion of our partnership with Qatar Airways Cargo, we are excited to drive a further acceleration of digital air cargo bookings in Europe," he said.

Since the introduction of WebCargo, Qatar Airways Cargo said it has been receiving high volumes of eBookings via the platform. 

The airline said digitalisation is a key pillar of the carrier's strategy as it moves towards more systems that allow for dynamic pricing, automatic quotations, robotic integration and improved reporting.