What Digitalisation Really Changed In Air Cargo And Why Systems Must Do More Today
Mike Smith, Product Director at HLT, describes the earliest shift very simply:
“In the 90s, 90% of airway bills were paper and the biggest issue was always the time lag, what happened in the warehouse and what the system knew were never the same thing.”
Digitalisation has changed three major aspects of ground handling operations:
- Real-time visibility – Updates happened instantly, not hours later
- Awareness of failures – Supervisors could see issues early instead of waiting for customer complaints.
- Shared data – Information stopped living in separate places, systems or individuals’ heads.
However as Lance Duppa-Whyte, HLT Product Director, points out, the workforce has changed alongside the technology. In the past, cargo operations relied on long-term teams with deep operational knowledge. Today, turnover is higher and many roles are filled by temporary or agency staff, with less time to build experience. This fundamentally shifted expectations of what systems need to provide.
“The system has to offer the knowledge that used to come from years of experience,” Lance explains
“Hermes was designed with this reality in mind, not simply to digitise tasks, but to guide users through complex work reliably and consistently, even under pressure.
Why Hermes works the way it does
Hermes’ design philosophy has remained consistent from the beginning: Give users visibility, prevent problems before they escalate and bring the entire operation into one environment.
Mike remembers early system demonstrations clearly: “You’d show a manager a single screen and say: If it’s not highlighted here, it’s running fine. Anything that appears needs attention. They’d immediately pull out their laptop and check the live operation.”
Hermes was built to be:
- A single operational environment – Before Hermes, ground handlers used separate systems for operations, accounting and airline updates. Consolidation brought consistency and speed.
- Functionally rich – Hermes was never designed as a simplified “tick-box” system. It handles complex scenarios, edge cases and operational realities that lighter systems often overlook.
- Shaped by real experience – Much of the system logic comes directly from people who worked on the floor, not abstract design assumptions.
As Lance puts it:
“Hermes is a smart system. It supports almost every scenario you might see in a warehouse. That’s always been the core strength.”
In the final article, Mike and Lance share what they would look for if they were choosing a cargo management system today and why people remain the biggest factor in successful digitalisation.
