3 ways to track air cargo

Are you thinking about shipping your goods by air?  Are looking for an air freight company? Or are you just exploring the options for tracking your cargo? If yes, use Easy Move Kuwait overview to find out 3 ways to track air cargo. Shipping goods by air is the fastest and the safest way to transport goods. But what happens with your goods along the way, starting with the first mile, storage time, time at the airports, and the very last mile. How do you track and trace your goods?

3 ways to track air cargo

There are three different ways you could track your air cargo. Let’s find out more about them! You can track your goods  through:

• Airline
• Freight forwarder
• By using GPS devices

Finding out what you can and cannot get from each of them would make a picture more clear. Besides, it will give you a more precise idea of what to opt for.

Track your cargo through an airline

Tracking your air freight Kuwait through an airline platform implies manual checking, which is still a very enduring process with high possibilities of error.

Track your shipment with the help of a unique AWB No. (Airwaybill-Number) issued to your package. To check courier status, just type in your reference number and find out where your package has reached. Air cargo tracking is simple. You have to click on the airline name and visit the air cargo tracking site of the airline. Also, you can search with airline prefix if you prefer. Nonetheless, the data you get is very limited.

What you get through airline tracking:

• Flight Location: it gives you visibility on your flight from take-off to landing.
• EDI-based (Retail Electronic Data Interchange)scans at airports:  allows smooth movement of shipping documents. EDI replaces old-fashioned manual processes that originally took place via emails, postal mail, paper-based purchase orders, or faxing.

What you don’t get through airline tracking :

• First and last-mile viewability: you only get fragmentary visibility on the shipment, with no full insight of what happened on the way.
• Condition details: you don’t get information on the condition of your goods or whether your cargo reached its destination intact.
• Customs status: you get no information whether your goods are held at the customs thus causing a delay of everything else.

  

Track your cargo through a freight forwarder

A more precise way to track your air cargo would be to get more information on your air cargo through your freight forwarders or cargo companies Kuwait. They will supply a combination of data from airline portals and APIs (Application Program Interface) from GPS trackers used by the transporter’s trucks. Using this system, without hardware, you can also get non-stop data about your shipments which isn’t possible if you’re using airline-based tracking only.

What you get when you track through a freight forwarder :

• The exact location of the flight: you have the exact position of the flight and the time when it reaches the final destination.
• Incomplete first and last-mile visibility: it can provide visibility on the first and last mile, but only if GPS is in the vehicles.
• EDI-based scans at airports: it scans shipping documents.
• Warehouse details: you get information when your shipment is scanned in and out at the freight forwarder’s warehouse.
• Customs status: you get the customs status of your packages through EDI.

What you don’t get:

• Condition details: you will not find out temperature, shock, or other conditions during air shipping
• Package information: you won’t know if or how many of your packages strayed at the airport until the incomplete shipment appears at the final destination.
• 100% confirmation about the freight on board: you will get no information whether all the boxes of your air cargo are on board.

Using a GPS tracking system

Among all three ways to track air cargo, a GPS tracking system appears to be the simplest one.  All you need are wireless GPS devices sent together with your air freight. The device will constantly collect and send information about your shipment but it will largely depend on the type of network connectivity it gets.

What you get with a GPS tracking system:

• The first and last-mile visibility:  you will get end-to-end location except for in-flight information

What you don’t get with a GPS tracking system:

• Condition data: the GPS trackers wouldn’t be able to tell you the temperature, shock, humidity, door opening, light intrusion, or other conditions during the journey.
• Info if the package went astray at the airport: the tracking is on shipment level, not on package level and you won’t notice if your consignment is incomplete.
• Customs information: it can tell you when your cargo is at the customs but you will get no information on the status of the process.

  

Other limitations

In addition to these limitations, there are some other inadequacies that GPS-based trackers bear. Firstly, an airline should approve the GPS device to accompany the shipment. Secondly, a GPS tracker contains a Lithium-Ion battery which is categorized as Dangerous Goods (or DG) in air travel. Therefore, there is a limitation of just 2 trackers per Airway-Bill (AWB) which also affects the size of the cargo being tacked. Airway-Bill (AWB) is a document that accompanies goods shipped by an international courier and allows for tracking so this can’t be ignored.

 

To sum up, these 3 ways to track air cargo have many benefits but there are weaknesses too. Technology is getting more advanced every day, new tracking solutions are emerging and coming into use.  Any air cargo needs more than just tracking and plain whereabouts. Of course, if reaching its final destination in full and on time is of importance to us, not to mention the client’s satisfaction. Should shipping companies rethink their whole air shipment tracking system? Questioning how? By implementing new real-time cargo monitoring and tracking with IoT (The Internet of Things). IoT refers to a system of related, internet-connected objects that can collect and transfer data over a wireless network. IoT operates without manual, human intervention, heavy infrastructure, or expensive equipment. The personal or business possibilities are endless with everything that can gather and transfer data over a network.