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WiseTech air cargo push challenges independent booking platforms

In a move that could be a blow to air cargo booking platforms, WiseTech Global expects more forwarders to book airfreight directly within CargoWise, as it expands its airline connections and opens the platform to general sales and service agents. ATC Aviation Services, part of World Freight Company (WFC), has become the first GSSA to connect to CargoWise AirlineConnect, allowing users to search, compare, and book services from its represented airlines in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. The connection brings capacity, schedules, and dynamic pricing into the same system forwarders use to manage shipments, with booking confirmations, amendments, cancellations, and status updates feeding into their workflow. Stuart Hayman, head of carrier integration and transformation at WiseTech Global, told The Loadstar the company expected more customers to book directly in CargoWise as its network expanded. "When booking happens inside the execution workflow, data is captured once and carried through the full shipment lifecycle," he said. "That clearly benefits accuracy, speed, and cost, so yes, we expect more forwarders to take advantage of these efficiencies." According to WiseTech, AirlineConnect now provides digital booking access to airlines accounting for 75% of the air waybills its customers execute, up 15 percentage points from a year ago. The figure measures the connected airlines' share of customers' air waybills, rather than the proportion of shipments actually booked through AirlineConnect. GSSA connections could broaden that reach by bringing several represented carriers onto the platform through a single integration. "Many of the airlines that GSSAs represent don't run their own ebooking channels in every market," said Mr Hayman. WFC markets capacity for more than 300 airlines across over 3,500 tradelanes, although the initial ATC connection covers only its airline portfolio in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. WiseTech expects coverage to expand through WFC's network over the coming months, and through other GSSA connections. Access to AirlineConnect is included in the CargoWise Value Pack. WiseTech did not specify whether airlines or GSSAs pay connection or transaction fees. However, Freightos founder and former CEO Zvi Schreiber argued that independent booking platforms retained advantages over a service tied to a particular transport management system. "Freightos Platform has two things a TMS can't easily copy. It's neutral, so an airline connected to it reaches forwarders whatever system they run," he told The Loadstar. "And through Freightos's shipper marketplace, the Freightos platform connects end-to-end, carriers to forwarders to shippers." Dr Schreiber, who is campaigning for Freightos to prioritise platform growth, said maintaining that network advantage required continued investment. "When a well-funded incumbent moves into your market, that's the moment to accelerate, not to take a sabbatical from growth." WiseTech's airfreight ambitions also extend beyond booking. Its July collaboration with Lufthansa Cargo and IBS Software enabled shipment records to be exchanged using IATA's ONE Record standard. Mr Hayman said the projects addressed different parts of the same workflow: AirlineConnect enables forwarders to find and secure capacity; while ONE Record supports shipment data exchange throughout the shipment lifecycle. "We will expand the bookable network through more direct airline and GSSA connections, deepen post-booking messaging and status visibility, and support standards such as ONE Record as airlines adopt them," he said. For forwarders, connectivity can be an important factor in choosing their operating system. New Hamburg-based forwarder Cherry's Logistics selected CargoWise after considering alternatives, with co-founder Marc-Henrik Schmitz identifying "the API connection possibilities" as one reason for its decision. Co-founder Sandra Bufe said its scalability and potential to save time and manpower were also attractions. But Cherry's intends to build its own data and knowledge environment, connecting its TMS and other systems while preserving flexibility over suppliers. "We want to stay flexible in making our own choices," said Mr Schmitz. Mr Hayman acknowledged that forwarders would continue using multiple booking channels as the market moved away from manual processes. "Our job is to make CargoWise the most complete and convenient option, which is why expanding the network through GSSAs like ATC is so important."

Analysis: SF Holding has a fuel problem, but valuation discount unexplained

Look here: A fuel bill explains much of SF Holding's weak second quarter at its latest update, but it does not by itself explain the stock's valuation. SF trades between FedEx and UPS on 2026 earnings, but at less than half their EV/Ebitda multiple. KLN trades more cheaply still, but SF's 51.52% holding is worth only about 3% of SF's market capitalisation - too little on its own to explain SF's valuation discount. A deeper structural premium for Western ...

Hormuz closure a fatal blow for Dubai and Abu Dhabi transhipment volumes

The closure of the Hormuz Straits, now approaching its eighth month, has been predicted to lead to the permanent loss transhipment traffic for the Gulf's two largest container facilities, Jebel Ali and Khalifa. Prior to the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, the two UAE ports were a favoured waypoint for relay transhipment operations - boxes moving between Asia-Europe vessels and ships deployed on north-south trades. However, a combination of soaring insurance premiums on vessels passing though Hormuz and the major carriers redesigning their networks to insert alternative transhipment calls could spell the death knell for port operators DP World and AD Ports' hopes of reinvigorating their transhipment volumes when the conflict ends. "Relay transhipment doesn't come back - ever," said Eirik Hooper, Drewry's senior associate for ports and terminals said in the consultancy's Freight Loop podcast yesterday. "It's the most price elastic and least sticky cargo type in container shipping because it follows network design, not geography. "So once MSC has moved a call to Khor Fakkan; once CMA CGM has built its logistics capability at Sohar; once the carriers have rebuilt their networks around Salalah, Colombo, Vizhinjam or Jeddah, there's no case for reinstating a Hormuz transit to serve cargo that never needed to enter the Gulf," he added. And he further argued that the July agreement signed between by DP World and Fujairah Port Authority for a 50-year concession to construct two terminals outside Hormuz indicated that DP World management had likely come to a similar conclusion. Both DP World and AD Ports reported huge declines in first half volumes at Jebel Ali and Khalifa respectively, due the war, forcing their owners to look elsewhere for growth. "DP World is building 2.5m teu capacity outside of Hormuz and is marketing it as an extension of the Jebel Ali ecosystem - I don't think you can simultaneously argue for a full Jebel Ali transhipment recovery, whilst its owner is planning for the opposite," he said. At the same time, Khor Fakkan owner and operator Gulftainer has drawn up plans to take its annual capacity from 3.5m teu to 10m teu, although this appears to be partly predicated on its new role as a Gulf bypass port that has managed to keep container flows continuing into the Gulf markets. Additionally, he said there was little chance of a decline in insurance premiums for vessels transiting Hormuz: "Insurers will not restore pre-2026 pricing for a strait that's been mined and blockaded, and a hub whose access carries a persistent risk premium and cannot win price-sensitive relay cargo against a Salalah or Colombo - that's structural, not cyclical." Pre-war insurance rates for Gulf-bound ships hovered around 0.1%-0.2% of the vessel's hull value and went up to anywhere between 2.5% and 7.5%, "depending on whose book you're looking at", he noted. However, given the enormous supply chain infrastructure investment the Dubai government has made over the past four decades, Mr Hooper believed Jebel Ali would continue to have a major role to play in regional container supply chains. "There's still a big business there - [upper] Gulf transhipment plus re-export businesses, which are materially smaller, but still substantial. "It will keep its preeminence regionally because of the JAFZA free trade zone, the warehousing, the industrial cluster, the cargo airport - it's taken four decades to build that out and you can't relocate it overnight." But Abu Dhabi's Khalifa port, which has been nibbling away at Jebel Ali's dominance for the past few years, was "a bit more exposed because Kizad [the Khalifa free trade zone] can't claim the same size, longevity, or breadth of customer base to anchor it. "That's the harder conversation for that shareholder group," he added. The three big wins for Khalifa in recent years was due to a shift from a common-user terminal model to dedicated carrier terminals, developing joint-venture facilities with Cosco, CMA CGM and MSC. However, with network redesign forced upon carriers by the war, those volumes have gone elsewhere and carriers are using large amounts capital to support the new networks. "The Hormuz crisis is driving deal making directly - with Jebel Ali and Khalifa inaccessible, MSC needed a structurally safer relay hub outside the Gulf, and one where it held equity; hence it acquiring 49% of Adani's Vizhinjam for $1.4bn," he said. Despite the deal being held up by the local state authority over questions of common access, "given MSC's volumes, it's our view that it will eventually get approved rather than refused, but there may be some conditions attached," Mr Hooper said.