IN Brief:
- CMA CGM Air Cargo allotments are now bookable through CargoAi’s CargoMART platform.
- The workflow covers allotments, block-space agreements, pre-bookings and other recurring air-freight capacity commitments.
- Shared reporting gives carrier and forwarder teams visibility into allocation utilisation, quality and price competitiveness.
CMA CGM Air Cargo has extended its use of CargoAi by making recurring capacity allotments bookable through the CargoMART rate-management and e-booking platform.
The functionality gives the airline and its freight-forwarding partners a common workflow for recurring capacity agreements, including allotments, block-space agreements, pre-bookings and other regular capacity arrangements. Those commitments sit between spot booking and longer-term network planning, requiring individual flights to be managed against capacity agreed in advance.
CargoAi says freight forwarders working with several participating airlines can submit one allotment file across carriers instead of maintaining a separate process for each airline. File uploads from transport management systems are supported alongside tracking capabilities, creating a route for capacity data to move from a forwarder’s existing systems into the booking workflow.
Recurring capacity can be administratively demanding because the commercial agreement and the individual flight booking are separate layers. A forwarder may have secured a block of space over a series of departures, but each flight still has to be confirmed, monitored and reconciled against actual shipment demand.
CargoMART is designed to structure that repeated work. CargoAi says recurring booking confirmations can be automated on a flight-by-flight basis, while status updates give both sides visibility into the progress of individual allocations without relying on repeated email exchanges.
The integration also gives CMA CGM Air Cargo and participating forwarders access to CargoMART’s Strategic Hub. CargoAi says the reporting covers allocation utilisation, a quality measure it identifies as FAP, and price competitiveness. Both parties therefore work from the same capacity data when reviewing whether agreed allocations are being used as expected.
Utilisation is particularly important because a block-space agreement represents committed capacity rather than a simple option to book. Under-used allotments can leave agreed space unfilled, while demand above the allocated level can push additional freight back into spot procurement or exception handling. Visibility into actual use gives carrier and forwarder teams a basis for deciding whether the recurring plan still matches demand.
The process does not change the underlying commercial agreement. Allotments, block-space commitments and other negotiated terms remain between the airline and forwarder. The software changes how those arrangements are administered at operating level by moving repeated confirmations, status changes and performance reporting into a common digital workflow.
That distinction prevents the technology from being credited with commercial outcomes it does not control. CargoMART cannot remove the effect of aircraft availability, schedule disruption, shipment readiness or changes in demand. It can reduce the amount of separate administration required to manage the capacity after those commercial terms have been agreed.
Air-freight allotments are difficult to standardise because they combine repeated commitments with individual shipment events. A fixed volume may be agreed for a sequence of flights, but each departure can still encounter late cargo, documentation issues or operating changes. The system therefore has to preserve the recurring agreement while allowing individual allocations to be updated at flight level.
Forwarders using multiple airlines face another layer of complexity when each carrier manages that process differently. CargoAi’s common-file model is intended to reduce that variation by allowing the same allotment information to be submitted across participating carriers rather than reworked into several separate airline workflows.
The benefits will depend partly on how well the platform connects with the forwarder’s existing transport management system. Moving data from one interface into another manually would undermine much of the administrative benefit, so the ability to upload capacity files and receive status information through the existing workflow is central to the operating proposition.
CargoAi founder and chief executive Matt Petot describes recurring booking automation as a way of reducing repetitive workload without changing the commercial relationship between carrier and forwarder. That accurately defines the scope of the launch: the technology is aimed at execution and visibility around the agreement rather than replacing the agreement itself.
CMA CGM Air Cargo is joining other airlines already using CargoAi for recurring capacity management. The addition expands an existing digital relationship with the carrier rather than creating its first connection to the platform.
The practical test will be whether the common workflow remains useful when allocations change, flights are disrupted or forwarders manage commitments across several participating airlines at once. Recurring capacity still requires active commercial management, but consolidating booking status and utilisation information can remove some of the fragmented administration around it.
