Page 8 - The STAT Trade Times September 2022 Issue

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customers and the potential demurrage human errors, which is the very purpose of
charges. "However," he added, the stand- training, is to develop technology to make it
ards are very poor in terms of controls in even better and more reliable.
the industry." For example, providing more energy
The shortages are not the only chal- autonomy, which means you can run a
lenge faced by the air cargo industry specialised ULD for pharma longer without
related to the ULDs, as Marino mentions having to replenish dry ice again or having it
the lack of the workforce returning to the at the charging point, he said.
ULD as well as the air cargo industry after This raises the question of how far technol-
the layoff during the pandemic. “We've ogy can resolve some of these issues.
had to get creative with our recruitment One pain point is
and retention strategies to ensure that we Technology for rescue
keep supplying ULDs to our airlines. We've the difficulty in One approach adopted by Jettainer, for
had to offer more flexible working patterns example, has been to create digital counter-
and pay scales,” he informed. repositioning the main parts for each physical ULD in their fleet.
Marino also connects the lack of workforce deck containers used Muehlenkamp, said, “These digital twins
coming back with the increased misuse, pool data about every step in the ULD's
abuse, and mistreatment of ULDs as there are in freighters as most of lifecycle and form the basis for automated
untrained workforce creating issues. decision-making. Thus we can further
the airline partners are optimize the use of each ULD throughout its
Misuse, abuse, mistreatment flying passenger flights lifecycle and reduce repair costs.”
of ULDs Seitz reported an increasing demand for
"We expect to see some containers come with cargo on the Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to
into our repair shops three or four times a lower decks. track the containers even though they are
year and a large part of this repair work is for pushing for any standard.
damages caused due to mishandling and in Zhi Yong Liao ACL Airshop has developed a new Blue-
IATA
particular the use of forklifts. In recent times tooth Pallet Tag which works on the 1000+
this has been exacerbated due to the lack of In this way, it is possible to save repair costs global readers network of Descartes. Townes
staff coming back into the industry," he said. and keep the assets in service,” he said. said, “With this new device our customers
“These are uneducated acts sometimes Meanwhile, Marino notes that there is will have better utilization of their ULD fleet,
and happen due to a lack of care and at- a lack of accountability around the same extra data like temperature and the airway
tention and training. We're seeing a lot of and the industry needs to address them. bill number, more accurate stock insights,
untrained personnel coming in and they "The damages cost a lot for the industry and fewer lost ULDs. The integration with the
haven't been schooled on proper ULD han- and yet, there is a lack of enforcement. Treat airway bill is another market first for us, we
dling techniques," he added. these containers and ULDs with due care are beyond beta-testing – it works.”
Muehlenkamp of Jettainer also agrees and respect. Sometimes it's too easy for a Out of 145,000 ULDs in Unilode’s network,
on the importance of raising awareness handler just to take a knife and cut the net 120,000 of them are already Bluetooth
that ULDs are a valuable resource to further to get the load rather than unclipping it tagged and they intend to have a com-
reduce the damage caused by improper properly. It damages the equipment and the plete digital ULD fleet within the next two
handling. “We aim to bring the training to pallet needs repair and the net needs to be years. They are also putting readers at key
airlines, ground handling agents and freight replaced and certified,” he added. locations beyond airports. As the latest
forwarders. Well-trained operational staff, An interesting point that Adamsson development, Unilode, along with OnAsset
with full support from managers and execu- raised while talking about the importance Intelligence, announced the deployment
tives, can work safely, reduce damages, of training is that at Envirotain- of the world’s first airborne IoT network, an
and ensure proper er one way to mini- upgrade that now includes in-flight tracking
handling of ULDs. mise the impact of capabilities. Marino said, “We've already
seen some excellent results like a significant
reduction in missing ULDs, which is saving
millions of dollars in replacement costs.”
Whilst technology will play a part in this
it won't work unless there's a collective
agreement across the industry to enforce
the required handling procedures and
best practices.
Marino also believes the solution to
some of these problems is the formulation
of reliable standards and efficient industry
6 | SEPTEMBER 2022 www.stattimes.com