As the peak season for air cargo is approaching while the industry is facing capacity restraints and increasing prices, shippers cannot afford to stay ‘in-the-dark’ regarding the location, condition, and ETA of their shipments in transit. The third quarter is typically a peak season for Asian exports, as many importers globally start stocking up on goods for the festive holidays at the end of the year, including Christmas. With lockdowns getting lifted and production facilities coming back to operation in Asia and other parts of the world, suppliers are in a rush to bring delayed or new products to the market. For example, to compensate for production delays during lockdowns, manufacturers of consumer electronics will need to accelerate the transport of their goods to meet the demand for their products in the western markets before the Christmas holidays. Not to mention the potential availability of the vaccine in the near future, which will further grow demand for air freight. The industry needs to be ready for this to ensure security and operational efficiencies. The whole logistics process needs to be more transparent & digitized to eliminate inefficiencies. Air freight needs to be innovative, creative, flexible and operate with full transparency and visibility.

Shipping goods in the air with confidence thanks to IoT enabled sensors

As on-time and safe arrival of air freight shipments are of primary importance, businesses increasingly value convenience and transparency in knowing whereabouts of shipments in real-time. IoT enabled air freight monitoring technology provides not only location updates but also monitor granular environmental conditions while in the air. This data helps shippers and carriers maintain a chain of command as well as adherence to FSMA and other government regulations.

Air freight visibility data helps to reduce waste from inefficient processes, document control of the cargo and minimize the risk of loss. It also reduces excessive communication by allowing vested parties to track in real-time. While this information is enough for static goods, cool and cold-chain shipments such as food and pharmaceuticals require temperature monitoring. Other sensitive freight must log conditions such as humidity levels, light exposure and shock at every stage of the journey.

In short, an independent real-time, data-based solution such as Arviem’s air cargo monitoring, provides you all you need to monitor and track your cargo while it is in transit:

• End-to-end coverage of shipments: Real-time data gives you updates not only at checkpoints but all the way from source to destination including airports, flight and customs
• Condition monitoring data: More than the location data, get insights about parameters that affect the quality of your goods e.g. temperature& humidity excursions, shock, light exposure
• Proactive alerts: Instant notification alerts to all stakeholders regarding delays, stoppage, route changes, condition changes, enable you to make timely decisions and actions at the right time
• ETA alerts: With predictive ETA’s you know where your air freight is at any given time, when it will arrive at its destination and all possible delays. This helps to better manage inventory and make vital route optimization based on real-time data insights and analysis.
• Data at customs location: Be in the know when the shipments are opened at customs, when they’re being inspected, when the process gets delayed enabling you to expedite the customs clearance process
• Hassle-free device reverse logistics: As technology is part of the monitoring service, Arviem takes care of device logistics, maintenance, repair and reverse logistics
• Device approval by airlines:  The monitoring devices used to monitor the shipments are licensed and approved by most airlines globally

Why not to rely ONLY on air freight tracking by airlines?

Numerous air freight companies are offering air freight tracking services to meet the increasing demand for transparency. The solutions available offer only milestone-based visibility where location of goods is only tracked at specific checkpoints. Moreover, the conditions such as temperature, humidity, shocks are not monitored by the available solutions from airlines and air freight companies. These limitations, make milestone-based tracking solutions ineffective to safely and securely ship temperature sensitive products through air freight. Also, sharing information from airlines within complex global supply networks with all the tiers of the supply chain is getting more and more difficult to manage due to disparate information systems.

Technology has enabled us to keep track of everything. However, when it comes to precious cargo up in the air, just tracking and tracing your cargo’s location is not enough. If you want to be with your cargo through every moment of its journey from origin to destination, it is wiser to not only track but also monitor it and get data that enables correct and timely action.

Implementing a smart, technology based visibility and monitoring solution gives shippers and carriers the critical information to make informed decisions when a deviation occurs. It also helps to better plan routes and create operational efficiencies. Additionally, historical data combined with real-time data provides comparative route performance analysis enabling continuous improvement initiatives to guarantee faster deliveries.

Are you still not convinced of implementing IoT enabled cargo monitoring for your air freight?

Below we summarize the methods available for you beyond IoT enabled monitoring to track your shipments:

• Track and trace by airlines: You log into the airline portals and track the respective airplane in which a shipment is loaded. This method only gives you a location update from take-off to landing. End-to-end visibility before take-off, within airports and after landing is out of reach.
• Track air freight via your freight forwarder:  This approach combines data from airline portals and APIs from GPS trackers used by the freight forwarders or carriers. This method is dependent on data providers and involves multiple systems that cause data inefficiency and unreliability.
• GPS based trackers owned and managed by cargo owners: Buying and managing a pool of trackers puts additional stress on your organization. It requires additional processes to manage the reverse logistics, maintenance, repair of the trackers used.