Air cargo puts tech to work on missed flights, delays, and wasted capacity
LATAM Cargo is making its largest investment outside freighter aircraft, as airlines and airports turn to technology to tackle missed shipments, recover disrupted flights, and make better use of capacity.
The carrier's transformation programme, alongside operational tools at Atlas Air and automation projects at Singapore Changi Airport, shows where digital investment is being directed: toward the decisions and processes that determine whether freight moves as promised.
Speaking to The Loadstar at TIACA's Air Cargo Forum in Miami last month, LATAM Cargo CEO Andrés Bianchi said the programme involved around 18 teams and had already delivered 45 digital products, with five more planned for Q4.
"This is the largest investment LATAM Cargo has ever made in something other than a freighter," he said, declining to disclose the amount.
The starting point was changing how the company worked, he explained, moving away from traditional departmental silos and identifying where performance needed to improve.
"It's thinking in a different way in terms of how people work, and then asking them what they need to deliver using technology," said Mr Bianchi.
LATAM first considers whether existing software can meet its requirements, but he estimated that 80% to 90% of what it needed was worth developing in-house.
For customers, the priorities were reliability, speed and peace of mind. That meant addressing failures such as cargo missing a flight because of a document or communication problem, rather than simply replicating the information services airlines had traditionally offered.
Tracking was another example: customers might want shipment information delivered through a different channel, rather than having to retrieve it from a website.
Better aircraft loading and planning also offered a way to release capacity. Mr Bianchi cited finding an additional 5% payload as an example of the potential benefit on constrained lanes, rather than a quantified result already achieved.
At Atlas Air, chief strategy and transformation officer Martin Drew described a Network Decision Support Tool designed to help untangle disrupted aircraft and crew schedules.
A weather delay, for example, could leave a crew unable to operate its next flight within their permitted hours. Replacing that crew creates further questions about positioning, cost, and whether an aircraft will still reach its maintenance location with enough time and staff available.
Atlas's operation is particularly complex, because it does not follow a conventional hub-and-spoke pattern, he explained.
The tool produces recommendations within milliseconds, assessing the cost and operational consequences of recovery options, Mr Drew said.
"It's such a complex sort of jigsaw," he added. Previously, the exercise had been largely manual and could result in less-effective decisions.
Atlas developed the tools through a transformation team combining internal operational expertise with people recruited from consultants and other airlines. It has also brought data together through a Databricks platform to support decision-making.
Future development includes maintenance planning, aircraft routing, and integrated scheduling of aircraft and crews. Mr Drew also identified opportunities to improve forecasting by examining larger volumes of data.
At Changi Airport, one measurable result comes from coordinating trucks with cargo readiness and warehouse resources.
VP of its cargo business division Jaisey Yip said early results from truck-dock slot booking showed waiting times for cargo lodgement had fallen by about 25%.
Introduced in 2024 for cargo lodgement - submitting documentation electronically to authorities or handlers before the physical cargo arrives - and extended to collection the following year, the system replaces uncoordinated arrivals with planned visits, aligned with shipment readiness and handlers' available dock capacity.
The airport is working with SATS, dnata, and tech partners. An enhanced version, planned for 2027, would deepen integration with handlers' cargo management systems and allow multiple slots to be consolidated into one trip.
Changi is also trialling Aircraft 360, using computer vision and AI to monitor milestones during aircraft turnarounds. When a process falls behind, the system alerts operational partners so they can redeploy resources before delays spread.
Ms Yip reported early improvements in turnaround punctuality, but did not quantify them.
Autonomous cargo transport remains another area of testing.
SATS is trialling vehicles to move shipments between its import terminal and forwarders' warehouses within the airport free trade zone. Driverless baggage tractors are already operating, but extending the technology to cargo towing involves further work.
For LATAM, technology investment also depends on maintaining the people who understand customers' problems, and can act on the information.
"AI will help you make better decisions," Mr Bianchi said. "The people at the front are going to make those decisions."
