Wiremind’s recently expanded air cargo software and data-science team has spent the past months enhancing the company’s trusted capacity steering platform. SkyPallet, which counts over 1200 users in 100 countries – among them leading, international air cargo stakeholders such as Emirates, Atlas Air, United, Qantas, ECS Group, and Chapman Freeborn – offers several service modules that can be used together or individually.
Three services are of particular interest and help to bridge the gap in knowledge and experience within an airline’s air cargo teams, resulting in greater process conformity, higher revenues, and, above all, improved flight safety given that applicable regulations and restrictions are automatically considered by the system.
SkyPallet’s 3D Volume Calculator supports sales staff in pricing decisions for quotations, as it determines within seconds how much space a non-standard shipment would be occupying given available capacity options. To do so, it automatically considers contours and restrictions, thus eliminating several manual process steps that not only slow down the quotation process, but can also result in inaccurate and inconsistent data, and therefore reduced revenue potential. The 3D shipment visualization can be shared with all involved parties, an appropriate rate can be established, and the airline benefits from an increase in revenues.
Similarly, SkyPallet’s Flight Planning module provides a detailed ULD build-up sequence to optimize capacity utilization. This module was recently enhanced with a new visual build-up plan feature which caters to the specific needs of flight planners and GHAs. It rapidly calculates whether an incoming shipment would fit on the flight, using dimension assumptions when the final details are not fully known, and provides a more accurate result than one based purely on volume information. The system offers real-time remaining space calculations, based on the shipments that have so far been accepted for the flight.
SkyPallet’s Weight & Balance module ensures the trim of the flights. Its proprietary algorithm takes into account trimming requirements, and carries out weight and density checks to ensure the aircraft's center of gravity (CG) is properly positioned. In addition, it minimizes ground time through a smart allocation of positions depending on their destination, to ensure the first pallets to be unloaded are close to the doors. The average calculation time for a shipment in SkyPallet is under 4 seconds, and a full aircraft is calculated in less than 1 minute.
“Our vision, at Wiremind, is to offer the ultimate end-to-end software solution to the air cargo market. In order to do that, we work closely with industry stakeholders who have a global vision and established cargo expertise, not just in operations and handling, but also in commercial, pricing, and inventory management,” Nathanaël de Tarade, chief commercial officer at Wiremind, says. “This industry knowledge, combined with our data-science intelligence, results in a unique supporting software solution that serves to greatly simplify the work of handlers, flight analysts, sales, reservation agents and operations in their daily tasks. They benefit from sharing the same data at all stages of the cargo process, from quotation to booking to build up to delivery. This not only speeds up software-supported decision-making, but also largely reduces the risk of errors caused by faulty or multiple data inputs for the same shipment.”
Wiremind is working on a number of additional products aimed at helping airlines and forwarders to better manage their cargo activities, and will be launching these in the coming months.
