Cargo Chat: Software startup Aircon looks to consolidate capacity for SMEs

Dallas-based software solutions startup Aircon has plugged a gap in the supply chain when it comes to securing airfreight capacity for small and medium-sized freight forwarders. Aircon offers airport-to-airport and door-to-airport shipping. The company will on April 1 begin offering complete door-to-door shipping for its more than 820 customers. The service would include shipments of dangerous goods , including lithium batteries. After receiving $1 million in pre-seed funding from Schematic Ventures in December 2021, Aircon launched its platform, leveraging predictive forecasting via AI and machine learning to consolidate space on an aircraft, giving smaller forwarders a leg up on the competition. Aircon received another $3.3 million in August 2023 from undisclosed investors. Aircon Chief Executive Chris Condon spoke with Air Cargo Next about the challenges small and medium-sized (SME) freight forwarders face and how Aircon’s software can make shipping simpler and more efficient. What follows is an edited version of that conversation. Air Cargo Next : How difficult is it to get small and medium-sized forwarders that are used to manual processes and operating in a certain way to adopt new technologies? Chris Condon : It’s extremely difficult to get people to trust in the industry in general. So small to medium-sized freight forwarders, they may have one or two accounts that is their lifeline. And so, it’s hard for them to give up control or knowledge of that. But once they do, and they realize that, “Hey, I can focus on the customer, and you guys focus on the vendor airline side of it,” it becomes a win-win situation for all because we save you time, giving you competitive rates upfront. So, they have to see the big vision of, if we funnel this all together ... in six months or 12 months, we’re saving 30% to 40% on that shipment . So now I can either improve my margin, or I can now go and gain more market share. It’s more strategic long-term. [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://aircargonext.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Aircon-demo.mp4"][/video] Air Cargo Next : How has Aircon’s customer base grown since it launched in 2021? CC : In terms of raw numbers, we’ve seen tremendous growth. Obviously, we’re more than doubling every month in terms of dollars and kilos going [back to] the well. But we’ve seen a tremendous amount of growth in both the revenue and [customers using] the platform. We’re adding between eight and 10 new customers a week. And then we’ve also found that the larger freight forwarders, even some of the top 25 exporters in the world, are now starting to use this as well. Air Cargo Next : How does Aircon’s predictive analysis AI help your clients? CC : The machine learning and AI part of [the platform] is, if you think of consolidation, we’re giving the forwarder a consolidated net effect rate. When we start thinking about capacity and rates — based on capacity, based on weather, based on trucking stuff, all that stuff — the machine learning and AI ... will decide which airport we are flying out of: 1, from a direct flight perspective; 2, from a cost perspective; and 3, from predictability. That’s part of the challenge with the small to medium-sized forwarders. They just don’t have the bandwidth to understand or spend time on what the changes are on the aircraft or the airline. How much space is available? Is it available for cargo? ... Is it a [B787] Dreamliner that [has capacity] available on it each night? Or is it an Airbus and [capacity] gets bumped 80% of the time because of passenger baggage? And that’s that predictability and the machine learning side of it that will predict, you know, at a high level of accuracy.

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