Let’s take a look at a package…
Imagine it’s one of the ubiquitous cardboard boxes sitting delivered to your doorstep, it’s almost easy to see it, just moments ago teleported into place. And while it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to discover there is currently a startup working on an interdimensional delivery portal, we’re not quite there yet.
The truth is, that package has traveled an incredibly complex journey to arrive on that doorstep. Most of the time, most people won’t even give it a second thought before scooping it up for the excitement inside.
Of course, if you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re someone, like us, who gives the global supply chain plenty of thought. You can see air cargo is a vital link in that chain, keeping the world running.
It’s in the Air. On the Ground. It’s all Around.
Around 35% of global deliveries by value are air cargo, and it’s growing. The inexorable growth of e-commerce is a huge driver in changing the global freight landscape. At the same time, the whole world seems to be changing at an exponential rate too, and there’s no doubt that adds an undercurrent of what might seem like a wave of opportunity.
Who Keeps Things Rolling?
If we think about that package again, it would never have made it on to the doorstep without a last mile motor carrier. Realistically, it would still be at the airport without them, not to mention the trip to the airport in the beginning. When you think about it, it’s amazing how much time air cargo spends on the ground rolling.
“The AirCargo Conference allows AEMCA members to meet with current and new forwarder customers in one place.” Jim Luciani, Air and Expedited Motor Carriers Association (AEMCA)
It’s in the Name: Air Cargo.
At some point, that package and all the rest of the accompanying cargo has to be in the air to be, well, to be air cargo. “In the air” is a pretty simplistic description though. Especially when you consider the complex network it takes to get aloft. The amazing dance of planning and coordination between the airlines and the airports they fly through to make the transition between freight and airfreight.
From the shipper, to the forwarder, to the cartage, to the airfield and for the reverse to the consignee – the central point of this is the airport, its location, access and capacity of aircraft and freight movement.” Patrick Haley, Airports Council International - NA (ACI-NA)
Linking the Links to Make a Chain
In the same vein, nothing at all would move anywhere without a freight forwarder to make the connections that join the links of the supply chain together and make that package even possible. A global and hyperlocal network connected together by technology and people.
Unstoppable innovations in technology have driven capacity, efficiency and capabilities across all these overlapping spheres. That same package is now trackable, traceable and manageable at every point in the supply chain. More and more data is available for every step, meaning even more efficiency, reliability and transparency in airfreight.
The digitally enhanced future is undoubtedly rich, with solutions to old problems and new opportunities, especially for the air cargo industry, in every imaginable permutation on the horizon.
The Future is Ours to Make
As technological innovation makes it easier and easier, the antidote to that little undercurrent of uncertainty has to be connection. The best thing that we can all do in the air cargo industry, to continue building the brightest future, is to build deeper and deeper connections between all the moving parts.
Simple, right? Strengthen the connections, shape the future of air cargo.
Even as each individual part is connected, there’s no better way to forge broad, meaningful relationships than getting everyone, from all the different facets of air cargo, together in one place. Nothing beats the electric synergy that happens when you put all the main players in such a beautifully disparate industry together to talk shop…and shape the future.
The AirCargo Conference in Dallas, March 2025 is one of the best opportunities of the year to make those connections. We’ll be bringing together the three big trade associations in the industry for exactly the kind of discussions, networking, planning, education and discovery we’re talking about.
We’re all together in lifting up air cargo and making the most of tomorrow for a vital cornerstone of modern life.
However you look at it, the future is fantastic for airfreight.
