Lufthansa Cargo joins Germany's federal research initiative Digital Test Field Air Cargo

Lufthansa Cargo has announced that it would participate in the German Federal Ministry of Transport's new federal research project "Digital Test Field Air Cargo" (Digitales Testfeld Air Cargo - DTAC), which will be administered by the Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics (IML).

"We are pleased that the Federal Ministry of Transport has clearly committed itself to air freight in Germany with the Digital Test Field Air Cargo. We want to contribute to further strengthening Germany as a business location. That is why we are contributing our many years of experience in digitalization along the supply chain to this nationwide project and ultimately also want to set international standards. Digitalizing air freight further also means making it more sustainable. To this end, we see great potential in optimized data exchange between all partners in the airfreight transport chain, for example, which we want to leverage," said Harald Gloy, Lufthansa Cargo's Executive Board member for Operations and Human Resources and a member of the BMVI's Innovation Commission.

Lufthansa Cargo is focusing on increased data interchange between all stakeholders in the transport chain as part of the initiative, going beyond the traditional duties in the transport process. All data-driven optimizations and AI-based apps are built on this data interchange.

Using IATA's new, open ONE Record standard, for example, digital accompanying papers from manufacturers to consignees will be made available to all parties. Lufthansa Cargo contributed considerably to the development of this standard. Temperature data, position data, and photographs of the complete transportation chain should also be made available in order to identify and fix problems sooner. Through better projections and increased data quality, this can promote transparency and make processes and capacities more efficient. This, in turn, eventually leads to a reduction in CO2 emissions.

The "Digital Test Field Air Cargo" is able to contribute and take into consideration viewpoints and requirements for future improvements from the entire industry due to the association of different players encompassing the complete air cargo operations, including pre-carriage and onward carriage. This allows for the development of digitalization solutions across sites while also laying the groundwork for their integration into current process flows.