DIGITALISATION
The mother of
invention
Has necessity caused the scales to drop from the eyes of the
sector’s players? The Editor talked to Camilo Garcia Cervera, of
Freightos, about light at the end of the tunnel.
March 2020: whether this
particular month will
go down as an infamous
one in the annals of aviation
history remains to be seen. It
was a period of time that saw
the coronavirus claim yet more
victims while several countries,
including Italy, Spain, India
and the UK, entered a
lockdown stage. More than
that, the US government was
also trying to dissuade people
from socialising, as the ravages
of COVID-19 spread inexorably
around the various states. (In a
curious twist, it was also the
month that saw President
Trump declare that he
expected the country to be
back on its feet by Easter…)
Set against this backdrop
was the bleak news of carriers
cancelling fl ights and an
upsurge in demand for cargo
capacity, to the point that
passenger aircraft were being
pressed into service to try and
feed the marketplace.
Quixotically, there were simply
not enough bellies or freighters
available, and so the cost of
transportation climbed. A
vicious circle, to put it mildly.
But amidst all this doom and
gloom there was one crumb of
comfort, a crumb that was
only noticed by a relatively
small number of players within
the sector.
Background knowledge
Global VP Business
Development, Cervera joined
Freightos after almost two
decades of working at IAG.
People are
beginning to realise
the advantages that
digitalisation can
bring to the supply
chain
Camilo Garcia Cervera, Freightos
Because of this previous
experience he brought a useful
amount of background
knowledge to the marketplace
– or more specifi cally, the
opportunities presented by a
digitalised online cargo
platform. And whilst Cervera
would be the last to hint that
the current coronavirus
outbreak has contributed to
greater interest in the
digitalisation process, he
nonetheless makes a strong
case for the virus pushing the
cargo sector down new
avenues.
“As we know, the cargo
sector is in many ways still
living in the 1970s. Things
haven’t changed much at all
and the industry hasn’t turned
itself around. Lots of processes
are still manual: they are slow,
they’re opaque and they are
not necessarily very precise.
“But that said, over the last
18 months there has been
movement, for carriers,
shippers and forwarders; and
whilst I wouldn’t claim that
the virus is the reason, clearly
this has had an effect. People
are beginning to realise the
advantages that digitalisation
can bring to the supply chain.”
Readers who might be
sceptical at this point need
reassurance: this may come
with the fact that Freightos in
March recorded the highest
ever number of new clients in
the space of just a week. At the
time of the interview, some
1,900 customers were making
use of the digital platform; but
that is not the whole story, for
many of that number operate
on multiple sites. Moreover,
actual deployment of the
digital solution can be effected
overnight, assuming that the
recipient has the necessary IT
infrastructure in place: a long,
laborious cut-over is not
www.airlogisticsinternational.com June 2020 37
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