IATA calls for airfreight industry to accelerate modernisation and focus on service quality

IATA called (14-Mar-2017) for the air cargo industry to accelerate modernisation and focus on high quality service. IATA director general and CEO Alexandre de Juniac said customers are "frustrated with complicated and convoluted paper-based processes" and demand "high quality cutting-edge services". Mr de Juniac outlined the following key areas for industry transformation:

• Simple modern electronic processes: The industry has been pursuing the e-freight digital process programme for more than 10 years. Market adoption of the electronic air waybill is a key element and global adoption has nearly reached 50% Mr de Juniac commented: "e-freight is taking far longer to implement than anyone would have thought or hoped for";
• High quality services: E-commerce and time and temperature sensitive cargo, such as pharmaceuticals, are focused on meeting specific customer needs and are the two fastest growing and most profitable parts of the business. Mr de Juniac said: "we are most successful when we understand and meet customer expectations with value-added solutions" and added: "Finding solutions to unfulfilled (or even unrealised) expectations creates value for customers. And that propels a business forward".

Mr de Juniac said: "Listening to the customer has never been more important. The positive forces currently supporting growth are good news. But our customers are telling us that they expect more. Complicated and convoluted paper-based processes that are basically unchanged from the 16th century are still being used in air cargo today. Our customers pay a premium to ship by air and they rightly expect modern processes and high quality services". [more - original PR] [more - original PR - II]