WHY THE GSA IS THE BEST SOLUTION

Ingo Zimmer, CEO of Frankfurt-based ATC Aviation Services, heads a very busy team. Busy, that is, in tendering for new airline customers. A recent signing was Silkway in Polen, while Avianca is coming back for territories of Switzerland and Germany as of May 1 and the GSA is in the process of signing a contract with TAP for Western USA. He says: “Our commercial department is very busy with many tenders, our pipeline is full!”

In the four-and-a-half decades since the launch of ATC, much has changed, while some things have remained that same, observes Zimmer.

He says: “What has remained and will always remain important is the existing customer relationship, market knowledge, excellent service, talented managers and customer service employees. In 1979 there were no PCs in use and nowadays digitalisation is the main change in the world. Now, you can’t run a cost-efficient organisation without a certain grade of digitalisation. You have also got to know what happens on the markets. Our group invested significant funds in the digital processes and data lakes that help us to take the right decisions for our airline customers.

“Air cargo in the 1970s and 1980s was a side product and not very professionally handled in some cases. Today more education and training, skills and qualified managers are needed. You will find many talents now in the air cargo departments of airlines, forwarders and GSSAs. Some leaders and CEOs of airlines in our time have been former air cargo executives.”

As to the perennial question as to whether a prospective shipper or forwarder should not bypass the GSA and go straight to the carrier, Zimmer is clear. He says: “If it makes economical sense of course, the airlines would entertain their own cargo set-ups. But the advantage of co-operating with a GSSA is well known in our industry.

“The amount of tenders is increasing from week to week. The GSA is very often the best solution because GSSAs can use synergies while representing several airlines at the same time. GSSAs have special knowledge when it comes to local or regional sales. Huge GSSA organisations, like ours, can invest heavily in new technology, digitalisation and data. Some smaller airlines might not fund this investment in their air cargo divisions. The strongest argument to use a GSSA is still that airlines only pay commission for cargo revenues achieved and do not have fixed costs. In our days very often the GSSAs bears part of the risks by agreeing minimum guaranties with their airlines.”

“AI is a good tool for us helping to save costs. We don’t see it as a threat, but rather as an opportunity for us. We’re already using bots to transfer fax and email information into digital quotations or booking requests. We are also using AI for the full AWB data capture and to feed other airline systems. The double entry, which has been a problem of the past, is solved by using AI. We offer the customers also the option to do ebooking via our ATC or our airlines’ global website.

“Our management, as well as our customer service agents team, are recruited from former airlines and forwarding agents with a wide experience in our industry. We also train our own staff and offer apprenticeships. Middle management and country managers are handpicked by our top management.”

With a cost of living crisis in many markets, Russian sanctions, war in Ukraine and inflation in many parts of the world, is ATC seeing any drop in airfreight volumes being booked through it?

Zimmer says: “We can still fill the capacity market for our airline partners even as the market demand is getting lower. We had no endof-the-year peak during December 2022 and also January 2023 started very slowly. Nevertheless, the capacities of the airlines represented by us have been filled by our teams. Being a GSSA, the advantage we have is selling many different products, different airlines, different destinations; a one-stop shop, with highly motivated teams.”