Inside Air Cargo Digitalisation: From The Warehouse Floor To Hermes’ Design Philosophy

Digitalisation in air cargo is often described through technology, integrations and automation. But behind every meaningful transformation are the people who understand what the industry looks like in real life, on a busy warehouse floor, at the reception desk dealing with customers or managing the pressure of irregular operations.

They know how problems escalate, how delays are created and how a single missing update can affect an entire flight.

At Hermes Logistics Technologies, two of those people are our Product Directors, Mike Smith and Lance Duppa-Whyte. With more than four decades of combined experience across ground handling, airline operations and frontline cargo processes, they’ve witnessed the industry shift from paper to real-time data and helped shape the systems that now power it.

In a recent conversation, they shared how the business has evolved, what digitalisation actually changed and why real operational experience still matters when designing cargo management systems.

From the warehouse floor to designing Hermes

Mike entered the industry at 18, starting at Pan Am as a transshipment driver, moving freight between airlines long before the modern ground handling model existed.

He later joined Lufthansa at Heathrow, progressing from warehouse operations into office roles, senior agent positions, supervisor and duty manager responsibilities. Dangerous goods became one of his areas of expertise, giving him a deep understanding of processes that modern systems now aim to digitalise.

Lance joined Lufthansa later through an agency programme, starting as an import clerk before becoming a trainer within two months. He worked across reception, customer service, quality control and SLA management and played a central role in designing early process-mapping tools.

Those tools would later influence the first iterations of Hermes.

Both men were involved in capturing operational knowledge and translating it into digital workflows when they were part of a team that designed the first unified system in the early 2000s.

“That’s how Hermes was formed,” Lance recalls. “By mapping real issues and bringing together expertise that had never existed in one place before. We ensure that the our products and services guide busy users, prevent errors and make complex workflows manageable.”

In the next article, Mike and Lance explain how digitalisation fundamentally reshaped ground handling operations and why today’s systems must do more than simply replace paper.