Over the last few years, the demand for air cargo industry has grown a lot especially with the emergence of eCommerce. There are a number of fields that takes advantage of air cargo. These include emergency and commercial deliveries as well as air cargo. Hence, it has truly become a prominent tool for the delivery as delivery gets done at a very fast pace.

But, with the advantages of air cargo industry, there are a number of challenges as well that you might have to go through.

Further, there has been emergence of advanced air cargo tracking (Opens in a new window). Thus, you can keep track of all your shipments any time and easily locate it. The best part is that you would get real-time visibility over the shipment movements. Hence, accurate information would be given to all the stakeholders.

So, in this article, we would be throwing some light on challenges of air cargo tracking (Opens in a new window). Let us have a look:-

How Air Freight Tracking is done?

In this, air cargo is tracked using a number of parties such as freight forwarders, airline, GPS devices and transport operators. In Air Cargo, tracking is done from first mile to last mile which includes custom clearances as well.

The air freight tracking (Opens in a new window) is further done through unique tracking ID or the Air Waybill which are given by third parties who are involved in freight transportation.

In general, it is seen that if air cargo tracking is done manually, then you might not get a very accurate result. For instance, if there are a number of connecting flights at various locations, then the system will only show you one ETA.

Besides this, manual air cargo tracking can be quite confusing as you might have to deal with a number of airports and carriers. Thus, it can result in lost shipments, delays and many other problems as well.

On the other hand, if air freight tracking is automated, then effort would be reduced and you will accurate results regarding your shipments.

What are the challenges in Air Freight Tracking?

1. Limited Information Regarding Carrier

If the freight tracking is done manually, this means that you would get limited information regarding the carrier. Likewise, not all the carriers provide their customers with complete insights as a number of parties are involved.

Also, it can get difficult to check particular location order. The reason is that particular item might be a part of bigger order.

2. No Proper Status Reporting

One of the major issues that you might have to go through in air freight is that standard reporting systems are not present. Thus, for instance, a certain event such as shipment pickup can be showcased in a number of ways. These includes:-

1. Pickup has been done

2. Order picked up

3. Shipment picked by driver

4. Completion of pickup

So, all the parties who are involved in shipments transportation, doesn’t have standard format. Thus, it gets difficult of have a central dashboard interface such that management can be done in effortless manner.

3. Dynamic ETAs to not convey to clients

You should understand that tracking process of air freight is a very complex. Moreover, all the customers expect that the shipment that they have reach on time. But, there can be a number of reasons for delivery failures or delays.

So, the most important thing is that all the alerts for such kind of delays are conveyed to customer in perhaps automated manner. Thus, there are two benefits out of this.

The first is that the experience of the customer is uninterrupted. Next are customers won’t have to raise tickets when it comes to shipment status checking.

But, you should understand that in air freight shipment, there are a number of moving parts involved. Hence, predicting accurate ETA can get difficult for the customer.

4. Poor Transparency

You should have a clear idea that manual tracking can be quite time taking process. So in manual tracking, details are checked with a number of parties such as consignors and carriers. Thus, the process is very time consuming and can results in delays. The reason is that multiple checks takes place at various locations.

So, when the retailer gets the information about tracking, it may not be correct.

Thus, we can say that sir freight which is tracked manually can cause discrepancies and can lack transparency.

5. Paperwork can be Tedious

One of the major problems that you might have to face with air cargo tracking is that you have to go through a lot of paperwork. Thus, it can cause a lot of issues especially in the case you are having large orders.

Hence, to tackle this, individual calls need to be made for every shipment. In this way, you will get insights regarding your journey. So, it may not be possible to scale and thus complete work productivity would be reduced as well.

6. It can lead to additional cost

Carriers in general charge demurrage penalty in the event of late deliveries.

Also, in the event that shipment is delayed for pickup from airport, then retailers pay demurrage and detention fees. So, as a business it can be a great loss and can result in poor visibility when it comes to movement of goods.

Thus, retailers have to go through high operational cost as well as loss of customers as well.

How Air Freight Challenges can be overcome?

1. Freight Management Platform

Freight management platforms are one of the best ways through which shipping operations can be streamlined.

Moreover, they provide proper access to the locations of the shipment in real-time. In this way, costly delays and errors are avoided. Other than this, you get standardized information for movement as well as ETAs. Thus, shipping movements can be managed efficiently from origin to destination.

Lastly, every stakeholder gets information regarding the movements of the order. So, the package can be directly tracked in order to get the location.

2. Dynamic ETAs

With dynamic ETAs, end customers would know in a hassle freeway about the goods being delivered from supplier or manufacturer. So, if something changes during the time, then situation would get very different.

With Dynamic ETAs, delivery failures can be avoided as well. The reason is that a particular customer would already know that a certain order is out for the delivery. Likewise, with dynamic ETAs, query tickets can be reduced which is directly related to the status of the order.

3. Incidental Costs Planning

Various automated platforms which are used for air freight tracking can assist businesses for managing and handling of various incidental costs such as detention and demurrage.

So, the system would send an alert if the shipment is going to get delayed. In this way, businesses get the time to plan and hence the cost associated with all of these is reduced.

Lastly, retailers can verify any reason for delivery failures or delays at a particular time.

4. Paperwork is reduced

With automated freight tracking, the requirement for individual calls for order progress checking or shipment tracking is avoided. All the things that retailers need to do is put in the tracking IDs for the shipment. After this, they would get complete insights regarding the movement of the shipments.

Hence, the requirement of printing multiple paper sheets with shipment numbers, contain details and carrier information would not be needed. Thus, the complete process would become effortless, smooth and streamlined.

5. Universal Communication and Tracking

By the help of air freight platforms that are automated, businesses can monitor, manage and plan the shipments with just one dashboard. Moreover, they can collaborate alongside with a number of carriers at the same time without any trouble.

Thus, with a unified window, there would be a lot more efficiency and less confusion. This can boost the productivity and operations could be scaled at the next level.

6. Delays are avoided

Businesses get insights regarding certain milestone events. Hence, they plan their journey accordingly. For instance, if they feel shipment can be delayed, then they choose last mile service. In this way, deliveries can happen at a very fast rate.

Thus, due to this, overall delivery cost is minimized and hence you won’t have to face losses or deal with unhappiness of customer.

7. Air Carrier Selection is Prioritized

If an automated platform is selected for carrier selection, then organizations can look out for individual service provider’s performance. Further, select the one that offers best performance with regards to quality, delivery time as well as overall experience.

The service providers are ranked based on the performance that they have presented in the past. Thus, businesses can select the business partner that is most profitable.

Final Verdict

Above are some of the challenges that you might have to face in air cargo tracking system (Opens in a new window).

So, it is recommended that you opt for OpenTrack who can provide you with AI powered platform using which key milestone events can easily be tracked. Hence, you would get complete order movement view.

Moreover, it can be integrated directly with a number of freight forwarders.