Airlines in foreign trade: the complete guide

The operations manager at an airline who resolves an AOG in minutes, with the component located, emergency freight avoided and the aircraft back in service on time, isn’t lucky. They have a process that knows, before the AOG happens, where every critical part in transit is.

Air cargo operations and airline logistics management have a characteristic other segments rarely face with the same intensity: the cost of an information failure is measured in grounded aircraft. A component held at the origin airport because of a document problem isn’t a fee to pay tomorrow; it’s an urgent decision about when the aircraft goes back into operation.

FollowNet One is e.Mix’s foreign trade software for airlines and air cargo operators: it centralizes tracking of in-transit inventory, control of airport storage and free time, and auditing of freight and expenses, so the team acts before the cost shows up on the invoice. This guide explains the specific challenges of air logistics operations, how to build end-to-end visibility and how to implement it without an endless project.

• → The problem: in-transit inventory without centralized tracking: nobody knows where the critical component is until the AOG happens
• → The cost and risk: aircraft grounded for lack of a part, storage at origin piling up without an alert and freight auditing impossible without consolidated data
• → The mechanism: AWB tracking + airport free time control + an in-transit inventory dashboard by criticality
• → How to start: the 10 part numbers most critical for AOG, one origin trade lane, alerts live in less than 30 days

The specific challenges of airline logistics operations

Airlines manage imports and exports under deadline pressure other industries don’t face: a delayed component doesn’t compromise a production line tomorrow; it compromises a flight operation today. Four challenges concentrate most of the risk:

1. AOG (Aircraft on Ground) for lack of a component. An aircraft out of service for lack of a part creates an immediate cost: rebooked passengers, lost slots, emergency freight for the component. An AOG is rarely a total surprise; it’s the result of a component in transit that nobody was tracking closely enough.
2. Storage at origin with no visibility. The component arrived at the origin airport, but the shipment was postponed. The airport free time starts counting. Without an alert, storage piles up for days until someone finds out, and the invoice arrives when there’s nothing left to do.
3. Warehouse consolidation with no priority criteria. Critical and regular cargo in the same consolidation process, with no distinction. What should leave on the next available flight waits for the normal consolidation cycle because nobody flagged it as urgent in the system.
4. Freight and expense auditing at the shared services center with no database. The shared services center (SSC) that manages the airline’s freight and logistics expenses can’t audit charges without consolidated data. Each operation generates documents in different systems, and checking them is manual, slow and error-prone.

AOG: how visibility of in-transit inventory prevents grounded aircraft

An avoided AOG starts weeks earlier: when someone knows that component X is in transit, what the ETA is, which airport it’s at and whether there’s a risk of processing delays. With centralized AWB tracking and alerts configured by criticality, the materials team knows early enough to trigger alternatives: a component from another stock location, a different route or bringing the customs clearance forward.

The difference between the operation that avoids the AOG and the one that reacts to it comes down to a single point: whether the information on the component’s location and status arrives before or after the problem.

Storage control at origin: airport free time isn’t the same as ocean free time

Free time at airports is significantly shorter than in ocean freight, and airport storage costs grow faster. At some origin airports, free time is only 24 to 48 hours. After that, the storage rate can double the original freight cost.

Three situations that generate excessive storage at origin in air operations:

1. Incomplete documents at the time of shipment. The component arrived at the airport, but the documents weren’t ready for the scheduled flight. The component stays in storage waiting for the next flight, with free time counting.
2. Postponed consolidation. Cargo waiting for the minimum volume for consolidation. The consolidation lead time wasn’t communicated to the materials team, which was expecting a different ETA.
3. An uncommunicated route change. The forwarder changed the route at origin without formally communicating it. The ETA changed, the component is at a different airport than expected, and nobody tracked it.

Freight auditing and the shared services center: how to review expenses without spreadsheets

Airlines with a centralized shared services center face a specific challenge: auditing freight and logistics charges across multiple routes, multiple suppliers and multiple operations, without a consolidated database.

FollowNet One centralizes each operation’s data (AWB, route, associated expenses, free time used) so the shared services center can compare what was contracted with what was charged, without a manual survey of each operation. Freight auditing goes from a monthly task that takes days to a weekly review that takes hours.

Proof from the field: from a reactive operation to a continuous improvement relationship

Before: The platform as an isolated tool: implemented and left alone. The team used what it knew and the rest went unused. Recurring problems with no root cause identified.

After: An ongoing relationship: the platform evolves along with the operation. Every development request documented, every process reviewed, every improvement built in. The operation stops reacting and starts anticipating.

Carolina Póvoa, Branch Manager Campinas, DSV Air & Sea Brazil
Video (in Portuguese): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D9hh6i8PQU&t=459s

How FollowNet One works for airlines

FollowNet One centralizes AWB tracking, airport free time control, prioritization of in-transit inventory by criticality and the expense dashboard for the shared services center, in a single dashboard with alerts configurable by route, supplier and level of urgency.

The result: the materials team knows, before the AOG happens, where every critical component is. The shared services center audits expenses with data, not with a manual survey. The cargo operation stops being reactive and starts communicating proactively with partners at origin.

How to set up an air logistics operation without an endless project

Owner: Materials Manager or Head of Cargo Operations, responsible for making sure every critical component has its AWB tracked, its airport free time configured and a priority alert active.

Cadence: daily, reviewing the dashboard of critical components in transit before the workday starts; weekly, reviewing the shared services center’s expense dashboard and identifying charges that don’t match.

Traffic-light KPI: number of AOGs that happened without a prior alert in the system, with a target of zero. Any AOG without a configured alert is a tracking process failure, not an operational one.

First scope: the 10 part numbers with the longest AOG history or the highest emergency freight cost in the last 12 months. Configure AWB tracking, free time and criticality alerts for those 10. Visible results in the first month.