Airport CCS can bring efficiency, new customers

Airports are increasingly turning to digitalization for cargo operations, ensuring cargo is moved through the airport as quickly and efficiently as possible and that data is centrally located, panelists said in a discussion of cargo community systems at Air Cargo Tech Summit 2023 in Brussels last week. [caption id="attachment_57138375" align="alignright" width="300"] Air Cargo Next Associate Editor Courtney Blackann, left, moderates the Air Cargo Tech Summit 2023 panel "Cargo community systems and vertical data integration," featuring panelists, from left, Joke op Den Acker, James Golding and Alex Lowe. (Photo/Air Cargo Next)[/caption] Cargo community systems (CCS) are open platforms that airports and stakeholders use to collect and share information about cargo shipments as well as optimize operations. An effective CCS not only saves the airport time and money, but can attract customers like forwarders and carriers, as it can save them time and money as well. “When you get your cargo quicker through the airport, the shelf life is much longer, and that could also be a benefit in choosing our airports,” panelist Joke op Den Acker , senior product manager cargo at Brussels Airport Co. (BAC), said. BAC operates Brussels Airport (BRU), which implemented BRUcloud and BRUcargo in 2016. Quicker turnaround is growing increasingly important as e-commerce grows . “When it comes to e-commerce and the way goods are moved now, these are the types of things” that attract new customers, said panelist Alex Lowe , director of e-commerce, cargo and aviation real estate at Edmonton International Airport (YEG). “This is a must-have in those conversations.” Potential customers need to know cargo can quickly move through the airport, thereby meeting time commitments made to their customers, Lowe said. YEG has the concept for a CCS but has not yet implemented it, he added. Obstacles to implementation Implementing a CCS can be a lengthy and costly process that requires a commitment from the airport and its stakeholders. “Developing a community system is not going to be straightforward,” said panelist James Golding , head of cargo at London Heathrow Airport (LHR). “The challenge is to get the community to align. “It might not be a popular thing to say, but it is a complicated thing to deliver, particularly if you’re starting relatively from scratch,” he said. It is also a matter of priorities, Golding said. “If there are the toilets in the corridors [that] haven’t been refurbished for 20 years, which is currently the case at Heathrow, it doesn’t matter how many workshops you have to try and implement this operating system as part of our community system,” he said. “It’s the basics on the ground that matter. So, we’re fixing the basics, and then we’ll sort of spread our wings and get into the more complicated delivery.” LHR’s cargo community system is operated by CCS-UK . Sharing information For a CCS to be effective, the airport and stakeholders must share information. “For the end goal you want to achieve by using the cargo community systems, some amount of transparency needs to be put into the system to allow us to all get the value,” op Den Acker said. This transparency worries some carriers and forwarders. “There’s also some concerns from folks that we’ve spoken to in our community about commercially sensitive information possibly being exposed through a CCS,” Lowe said. “Certainly we’ve worked with some of the various vendors to help dispel that.” Since stakeholders are generally connected to a CCS through an API, the airport has “still got control of what comes in and out of your own proprietary system,” he said. Having a CCS adds cyber-risks, increasing the importance of effective cybersecurity , the panelists agreed. Efficiency, not visibility, was the initial goal of the CCS, so airports must now determine how that visibility should be used, especially as it allows airports to compare their performance to that of other airports. “Visibility increased [after adoption], but it wasn’t ever the intention,” op Den Acker said. “Benchmarking each other in the beginning on performance was not the goal as such. Now we’re moving a little bit more towards that because we’re growing in maturity.” Despite lingering obstacles and concerns, CCS implementation has its benefits, the panelists agreed. “There will always be the early adopters and then those who are more resistant,” Golding said. “And I think to get the benefit … of a community system, we really do need to play the game.”

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