In early June air freight booking portal cargo・one proudly announced its first major all-cargo carriers on the platform. AirBridgeCargo and CargoLogicAir, the scheduled international freighter arms of the Volga-Dnepr group, had decided to offer their capacity through an additional channel, signing up for the platform.
“Offering our capacities on cargo.one enables us to meet customers’ growing demand for digital solutions and to give forwarders of all sizes access to our large global freighter network,” said Robert van de Weg, vice president sales and marketing for Volga-Dnepr Group.
David Kerr, CEO of CargoLogicAir, added that cargo.one offered the carrier a better reach to small and mid-sized forwarders and should boost its short-term sales and load factors.
For cargo.one the alignment with the scheduled Volga-Dnepr carriers is a major step beyond its original airline client base, which was comprised largely of the airlines in the Lufthansa Group. Lufthansa Cargo is a minority shareholder in the portal.
Earlier this year Finnair signed up with cargo.one, a move which indicated that airlines regard the portal as a neutral entity, regardless of the ties to Lufthansa Cargo.
Freightos, which offers air and ocean pricing information as well as on-line booking capabilities, has also been able to expand its carrier base. The most recent entrant is IAG Cargo, which signed up in early June to use its WebCargo on-line marketplace to offer real-time quotes and booking. It is the first third-party platform on which the European carrier group offers capacity on-line.
The deal made WebCargo the first live user of IAG Cargo’s digital application programming interfaces that provide access to rates and capacity availability information, plus the ability to make bookings. The pair are working on tracking capability.
IAG’s entry gives Freightos a powerful European platform. Having signed on Lufthansa Cargo early on, Freightos added Air France KLM in April.
These developments indicate that a growing number of airlines are coming to the conclusion that they have to go beyond on-line price information and booking on their own websites and embrace multi-carrier platforms. For that matter, Lufthansa and Air France KLM are working both with cargo.one and WebCargo, which signals that these portals are not exclusive but may be instrumentalized to reach different audiences.
For their part, portals need to build up broader portfolios of airlines to gain acceptance. As long as they are associated with small numbers of carriers, forwarders are likely to dismiss them as too limited in scope.
One airline GSA observed that many forwarders have eschewed individual airline sites for quotes because they find it too time consuming to check multiple airline websites. It is much faster and easier for them to send an e-mail to multiple airlines serving a given route to solicit quotes for their shipment. As long as portals have limited carrier bases, they fail by the same logic, since there are likely lower prices available elsewhere on the market.
However, there is growing interest in portals among forwarders. A spokesman for Air France KLM reported that the carrier’s decision to embrace multiple platforms was partly in response to its forwarder clientele, which has expressed a desire for “more real-time and dynamic solutions.”
Portals report growing use by forwarders. Cargo.one claimed to have over 150 forwarders signed up in March already, when its capacity base comprised mainly of the Lufthansa Group. According to Freightos, WebCargo is used by 1,400 logistics firms and sees north of 1 million rate searches a month.
For the airlines the portals represent additional sales channels to boost their reach, but they are also a key part of their drive to digitise the business in order to save time and costs.
According to Freightos, the savings are considerable. “Airlines benefit from digital access to the world’s largest online network of forwarders, reducing 85% of time spent managing sales/bookings and provides an additional sales channel,” Maayan Citron, head of corporate marketing, said.
Forwarders can save one hour per salesperson a day by using WebCargo Sky, the platform’s latest air freight offering, Freightos claims. WebCargo Sky, which was launched in June, is free to forwarders. It offers a mix of real-time prices from participating carriers and rates from other airlines.
“How we obtain the remainder is actually a strategic WebCargo differentiator,” stated Citron.
Forwarders are warming to these channels, although there are still reservations that the transition to digital quoting and booking may sever the link to airline staff. Bob Imbriani, executive vice-president international of Team Worldwide, noted that shipping lines have been difficult to contact since they made that shift, leaving forwarders and shippers stranded when things go wrong.
Another criticism of the digital process is that it leaves no room for negotiation. For that reason alone, a lot of forwarders will continue to send e-mails or reach for the phone.
By Ian Putzger
Air Freight Correspondent | Toronto