Air cargo’s next digital test is not simply about putting more paperwork online. According to discussion at Aviation Connect in Athens on 29 September 2026, the real challenge is joining up the fragmented streams of information that move with each shipment.
Shanmugam Thangavelu, product growth lead at Accenture Cargo, argued that shifting trade patterns, rising capacity and the arrival of more capable artificial intelligence tools are making it increasingly important for the ...
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industry to reconcile data from across the supply chain. He pointed to China-US e-commerce flows, which have weakened sharply over the past year after changes to America’s de minimis rules, as an example of trade moving rather than disappearing. At the same time, he said freight volumes overall were still growing and capacity was increasing year on year.
That divergence, he suggested, makes speed and accuracy in data exchange more important than ever. If the cargo itself is moving efficiently but the accompanying information is delayed, duplicated or inconsistent, operational and commercial decisions quickly become harder to make.
Ground handlers are among those most exposed to the problem. Mr Thangavelu described a situation in which a single shipment can arrive with several versions of the truth, coming from carriers, export agents, customs declarations and other parties. For handlers, that can mean uncertainty over basic details such as the number of pieces arriving, whether a shipment has been manifested at the last minute, and how much labour and equipment will be needed on the ramp.
IATA’s ONE Record initiative was designed to address precisely that kind of fragmentation by creating a shared digital language for air cargo. The association has said the standard is intended to replace older messaging formats with a single data model, API specifications and security measures that support more direct exchange of shipment information between airlines, forwarders, handlers and other partners. From 1 January 2026, ONE Record became the preferred data-sharing standard for the sector.
But Mr Thangavelu cautioned that awareness is not the same as full operational readiness. IATA said in December 2025 that more than 70% of respondents to its survey were aware of ONE Record, while nearly half said they were ready to adopt it. Even so, the survey also showed that stakeholders still wanted practical support, including pilot projects, examples from peers and regular communication to make the transition easier.
Recent deployments suggest progress is under way. Lufthansa’s work with multiple technology partners was cited as evidence that the industry is moving in the right direction, although a genuinely unified view of a shipment across its full lifecycle remains some way off.
That gap, Mr Thangavelu argued, is where AI can help. Rather than replacing the underlying standards, AI agents could sit across existing systems, compare conflicting records, and help operators decide what is correct and what action is required. In practical terms, that could mean better labour planning, fewer surprises at arrival, and faster responses to late changes.
The opportunity is not limited to warehouse operations. Mr Thangavelu said the same approach could support pricing, capacity allocation, flight planning and revenue management, if operational systems are connected more effectively with broader trade intelligence. For airlines, that could provide earlier insight into changing commodity flows and help sharpen sales strategies and network planning.
Industry concern about data quality is not new. Commentators have warned that poor cargo data still leads to revenue leakage, avoidable inspections and delivery failures, and that inconsistent records can undermine any serious attempt to deploy AI at scale. In that sense, the industry’s digital bottleneck may not be a lack of technology, but the absence of a reliable foundation for it to work on.
The message from Athens was clear: the air cargo sector may already have the tools to become more intelligent, but first it must learn to trust the data moving through its systems.
Source: Noah Wire Services
