Letter from Lothar - September inSight

Welcome to our newest edition of inSight.

Hopefully you have had the possibility of a relaxing holiday, and enjoyed time with your loved ones without having to think about your business. Being re-energized and having caught up with your full inbox, you are now surely prepared to tackle the remainder of this busy year.

During the summer months, we have had the pleasure of welcoming Avianca Cargo as a full member and LOT Polish Airlines as an associated member. This was hot on the heels of the joining by Hitit, the well-known Turkish IT provider. The last few months have therefore been quite successful for our organization. We continue to have a few other promising discussions with potential members and we are optimistic about growing our membership even further.

We have been successful in onboarding our new employee Ms. Ursula Wenzel. Ursula joined us as a part-time employee and is presently undergoing training to take on full responsibility of our finances, reporting, and smart data project. Although Ursula has only been with us a few weeks, she has already supported the team substantially by training us in the use of two new software applications. I am certain that you will join us in welcoming Ursula with best wishes for her success.

For the IATA Hackathon held in Seeheim/DE during the last weekend in June, Cargo iQ prepared a challenge to the hackers: how can D2D planning be prepared and executed when there is more than one forwarder involved in the shipment

handling from house to house? Awery Aviation Software was the winner of our challenge and secured the prize money. But more importantly, several other hacker teams took up the same challenge and their ideas and findings have been adopted by the D2D sub-working group, who are drafting a best practice document, which we will release as soon as possible as guidance to supplement the Door-to-Door specifications.

In a few days, the yearly Air Cargo Handling & Logistics conference is opening its doors in Athens. I have been invited to give a presentation and to take part in a panel discussion about quality in the air cargo industry. The conference starts on the 20th September, a day after our Board Meeting and Membership meeting.

Although we had initially planned to hold these two meetings in person, we have changed the plan on request of several members, so it will be a virtual online meeting on the 19th September.

If have not received your personal invitation, please contact Ursula (wenzelu@iata.org) so that we can add you to the list of attendees. The agenda for the Board meeting and Membership meeting is being set up, and we will share it with you soon.

Please do enjoy the following articles with a “View from the Board” from our new board member Murali Bandlar from Qatar Airways and other interesting activities.

Story edited by meantime.global