Delta Cargo’s DASH Critical & Medical now available from 15 U.S. cities

Delta Cargo’s DASH Critical & Medical service is now available from 15 U.S. locations, with Boston coming online today. The Atlanta-based carrier said that it will continue to expand its GPS-enabled, same-day service in 2018, providing real-time tracking and monitoring, with the option to ship items up until 45 minutes prior to scheduled flight departure.

The service targets the market for time-sensitive, small packages, such as medical commodities, legal documents, essential machinery parts and aircraft-on-the-ground (AOG) components.

If delivery is impacted by irregular operations, such as limited flying due to bad weather, the monitoring team will contact local airports to help coordinate the export, transfer and import of all DASH Critical & Medical shipments.

“We liked the idea of having an extra 15 minutes to tender our boxes and the guaranteed 45-minute offload time,” said Todd Sand, Northeast regional transportation manager for Delta Cargo customer Antech Diagnostics, a nationwide network of veterinary diagnostic laboratories. Sand added that the ability to trace every package via GPS was an important feature of the service.

DASH Critical & Medical is now available in Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Detroit, LaGuardia (New York), Los Angeles, Memphis, Minneapolis, Orlando, Rochester (New York), Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Savannah and Seattle, with service to 89 mainland U.S. destinations and Hawaii.

Delta Cargo’s expansion of the DASH service fits into the carrier’s recent strategy of offering direct-to-customer services, such as its recently launched website that allows anyone to book and ship airfreight, simplifying a market that was notoriously complex and segmented. “The first thing you notice about the airline industry, from somebody coming from outside, is just how complex the logistics system is,” Delta Cargo’s president, Gareth Joyce told Air Cargo World earlier this year.

Joyce worked to change that dynamic during his less-than-two years at the helm of Delta Cargo. He has established what he called a policy of “true customer empathy,” that focuses on customer, establishing a 24-7 call center, and improved visibility and connectivity.