Turkish Cargo organized a webinar, called “Cargo Talks” to take the pulse of the air cargo industry and discuss current trend topics such as digitalization.
Turkish Cargo organized a webinar, called “Cargo Talks” to take the pulse of the air cargo industry and discuss current trend topics such as digitalization, vaccine transportation, and the future of air cargo with industry professionals.
The digital event focused on the present and future of the air cargo industry, which has become more and more crucial over the past years by providing speed, privilege, and trust to its global business partners.
During the internationally-participated event, industry professionals and sector leaders discussed the actions taken by air logistics service providers during the pandemic, increasing costs, areas of flexibility, digitalization, and smart technologies in panels titled “The Future of Air Cargo and Digitalization in Air Cargo” and a presentation on vaccine shipments.
The digital event, which was free of charge and open to the public was launched by Mr. Ilker AYCI, the Chairman of the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of Turkish Airlines, and Mr. Turhan OZEN, the Chief Cargo Officer of Turkish Airlines and moderated by celebrated blogger and aviation enthusiast Sam Chui.
Other speakers included Henk Mulder – Head of IATA Digital Cargo Unit, Zvi Schreiber – CEO, Freightos, Matthias Hurst – Global Airfreight Initiatives Director at Agility, Peter Penseel – Air Transportation Operations Directors at Ceva Logistics, and many more.
Being one of the fastest developing air cargo brands in the world, Turkish Cargo continues to raise the bar for achievement higher with each passing day by combining its wide range of service and operational capabilities with the unique geographical advantages of Turkey.
Turkish Cargo is preparing for further growth in its airfreight volumes after gaining market share in 2020.
Speaking during Cargo Talks, an online event hosted by Turkish Cargo, the airline’s chief cargo officer Turhan Ozen revealed that the airline had last year seen its cargo volumes increase to 6.7bn freight tonne-km (FTKs) from 6.6bn FTK in 2019, despite the overall market recording a decline.
As a result, the airline has moved up from being the eighth busiest airline in terms of cargo traffic to sixth place, Ozen said. The carrier’s market share, meanwhile, increased from 3.7% in 2019 to 4.7% last year.
During the presentation, Ozen highlighted several initiatives that he hopes will help the carrier continue to grow in 2021. He added that the carrier will soon move all operations over to its new facility, named Smartest, at Istanbul Airport.
At the moment, the airline’s cargo operations are split between Istanbul and Ataturk airports, with cargo needing to be transferred between the two.
“Our facility, Smartest, is built to reach 4m tonnes of annual capacity when all phases are completed,” said Ozen.
“By moving into Smartest we will also complete our transition to a single hub system, and we will provide our customers with [shorter] connection times and better service quality.
“In Smartest we aim to use modern technology such as automated storage systems, 3D ULD planning, and unmanned ground vehicles and integrate them fully into warehouse management systems and work process.”
The airline will also continue to invest in its digital capabilities and will soon offer its capacity through online booking platforms and offer forwarders API connections so they can book capacity directly.
“Recently, we finalized the development of API gateways to directly integrate with our forwarder customers and digital marketplaces,” said Ozen.
“With these API gateways, forwarders, with whom we integrate, are now able to directly make bookings, manage the spot rate process, see current schedules and other fee types and take the advantage of special offers.
“In addition, when it is fully integrated with all leading digital markets in the industry, all forwarders will be able to perform online bookings, [access] spot fees, and cargo tracking transactions. In this way, our customers will be able to perform their transactions online 24/7 without any intermediaries.”
Participants competed in several games and quizzes and won free round-trip business class tickets and had the opportunity to further grow their network via virtual meeting opportunities.
The event, which was prepared by integrating live into the 3D world created in the virtual medium with tracking camera technology, and is realized in a studio environment, is the most advanced technological event broadcasted live in our country.
Having received a high engagement and great feedback, Turkish Cargo will continue its Cargo Talks webinar series soon.
