NEW-LDs: Thinking inside (and outside) the box

Balancing act

The digital connections being achieved by ULD companies have elevated the cargo container business into the high-tech realm, but there are other game-changing innovations being made in the ULD space that are a bit more down to earth.

For example, ACL Airshop is busy perfecting the collapsible ULD container. “The aim of this is basically a response to the growing e-commerce disruption in cargo,” said Wes Tucker, vice president of U.S.-based ACL. With e-commerce demand shifting many carriers from the B2B market to the B2C, the use of ULDs is on the rise, he said.

“If you buy a pair of shoes online that are coming to you second-day air, it’s likely that item has been put into an air cargo container, not palletized,” Tucker explained. “So, what you ultimately wind up with, especially as a main-deck carrier, is a huge imbalance of containers in a place where it is astronomically expensive to reposition them.”

Tucker recalled a scenario in which a client near the end of peak season had to return around 150 empty main-deck containers. “The only way to do that was to put them in an ocean container,” he said. “The roundabout price on that was almost $1,300 per container.” At that astounding price, he added, “they could almost have destroyed them.”

The answer, Tucker said, is to take a page from the equine world. “We are partnering with a world-renowned manufacturer of collapsible horse stalls,” he said. By making sturdy, durable, collapsible ULDs, clients can ship back five or six folded units in the same space a full unit would need.

As Unilode moves forward on its interactive ULD project, Bertsch said the company is focusing continuing field trials on monitoring cycle time, dwell time, damage prevention and product loss, as well as on safety and security issues, such as fire detection.

Express giant UPS has been a pioneer in the use of fire-resistant ULDs, choosing a container made of fiber-reinforced plastic composite, similar to the material used in military body armor. The MARCOlite container, by U.S.-based Macro Industries, can withstand peak temperatures of up to 1,200 degrees for four hours, giving pilots ample time to find a safe emergency landing spot should a fire occur.

In use since 2013, UPS’ fire-resistance units now number “several thousand in inventory with more being added every week,” said UPS spokesman Jim Mayer. They are also lighter than traditional containers. In 2016, UPS realized a savings of 660,000 gallons of fuel, thanks to the MACROlite, Mayer said.

ULD weight is also on the mind of Klaus Demtroder, managing director of German ULD manufacturer PalNet Air Cargo Products. Now that most ULD makers have switched over to lightweight aluminium, the average LD-3 container has been cut down to 53 to 60 kilograms, he said, which is about as low as one can go with aluminum and still maintain the strength to protect the cargo. So now, PalNet is experimenting with new composite materials, such as Twaron filament yarn material from Dutch textile firm Teijin Aramid. In the months ahead, more testing will be needed for possible environmental degradation of the composite panels due to aging, ultra-violet exposure and weathering, he added.

With so much interest in new technologies, this could be a big year for ULDs, especially if the rest of the supply chain stakeholders understand the potential values of these versatile boxes. “We need to work together with a common goal,” Bertsch noted. “We are building a believable business case that creates value to all stakeholders, not just one, or some. By working with regulators and industry bodies to remove impediments, rather than impose them, we will get there together, but only with an equitable commitment. Only if we all have skin in the game.”

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