WebCargo, Air France-KLM bring dynamic pricing to air cargo

In a bid to speed up the process of booking freight and broaden the use of dynamic pricing in the industry, Air France-KLM-Martinair Cargo has partnered with Freightos to use the WebCargo airfreight booking platform, which provides forwarders with live rates and capacity availability updates.

After completing pilot projects with forwarder Panalpina last month, using the WebCargo platform, AirFrance-KLM Cargo decided to roll out the API-based booking service to more of their customers. The carrier’s dynamic pricing model, offering access to the most competitive rates in real time, can now be viewed by the estimated 1,400-plus forwarders currently using Freightos’ WebCargo platform.

The standard model of offline airfreight pricing and booking, the companies said, costs the industry billions of dollars in “changing fees, untapped capacity and manual labor,” and can often take days instead of hours.

WebCargo, however, gives Air France-KLM Cargo customers a much faster digital interface to the carrier’s products and services, said Marcel de Nooijer, executive vice president of the carrier’s cargo division. This will ensure improved transit times and significant cost savings for airlines, forwarders and shippers, as well as improved capacity utilization, he added.

Real-time eBookings via the new platform will be launched “in a number of countries” and gradually expanded, the carrier said.

“Online quotation and booking are key features of Panalpina’s goal to make air freight more efficient for our customers,” said Markus Muecke, global head of airfreight procurement and product management at Panalpina.

Freightos said WebCargo is the world’s largest real-time air cargo rate database. If capacity is unavailable, however, the system also supports manual online ad hoc pricing, said WebCargo CEO Manel Galindo.