GSSAs will evolve to increasingly integrate with airlines while offering a menu of services and target new market entrants, according to speakers at the Aviation Connect event.
During a panel discussion at the Athens event, speakers were asked how they felt GSSAs would develop in the future.
Kales Group chief executive Sebastiaan Scholte said that new entrants to the airline industry could become future customers of GSSAs.
He explained that over recent years shippers, shipping companies, e-commerce platforms, freight forwarders and ACMI providers have all emerged as aircraft operators.
“All of them have certain lanes that are not full and they also have directional imbalances, so what I see as a future role for GSSAs is to become a broker of capacity. Who better can commercialise this space?” he said.
Elsewhere, Scholte said GSSAs would increase their use of AI tools to help improve aircraft utilisation while they would also increasingly sell back-office services to airlines.
The industry will also increasingly act as a “virtual airline”, he said.
“Many airlines want a Total Cargo Management (TCM) solution where you are the de facto cargo department of the airline. The advantage of a GSSA is that, if you do it right, you will take the best of all the airlines you represent and you become the best so-called virtual airline.”
His view was echoed by Vitaly Smilianets of Awery Aviation Software, whose product is utilised by many GSSAs.
“I think that GSSAs will offer more and more TCM solutions, and I think it is happening more and more in the last two to three years,” Smilianets said.
“The next succession for the GSSAs is that they can take over and do everything for the airline.
“Airlines will get to a point where they not only outsource their sales capabilities for a specific country but outsource the whole story and even do it globally.”
Smilianets also felt that airlines would increasingly use GSSAs for financial services, such as payment collection.
Emma Oliver, managing director of TCM provider Northwind Global Logistics, said that GSSAs of the future would have an important role to play in creating a single source of data across the industry.
“I think that where GSSAs can use the technology to become a better extension of the airline is where they will be able to differentiate themselves.
“Whether that is using the platform of an airline or using their own technology to ensure seamless messaging so we have this one source of truth, one source of data, across the industry.”
The integration of systems was also where 4RCargo commercial manager Pawel Kazmierczak felt that GSSAs would develop in the future.
“Being connected to the airlines, being connected to the freight forwarders, is where we are going to be in the future,” he said.
He added that this development could happen at the expense of third-party booking portals as airlines look to achieve more bookings directly on their own platforms.
