After years of heavy investment in data and technology, the industry faces a new challenge: transforming that information into smarter, faster decisions. Too often, commercial planning in air cargo is a fragmented and manual process.
“We worked in strategy consulting in our former life at Seabury,” Ryan Keyrouse, CEO of Rotate, explained. “We would build optimisation models within the limitations of Microsoft Excel. With Rotate, we wanted to take that software component and make it much bigger.”
From fleet planning and network design to sales execution, Rotate’s roadmap addresses the entire commercial cycle. “What we’re trying to do is help the industry make better decisions with the data and technology they have available,” Keyrouse said.
While data is no longer scarce, using it effectively remains a major hurdle. “Ironically, the biggest hurdle is that there’s too much data—and what do you do with all of it?” Keyrouse noted.
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He criticised the trend of overwhelming users with dashboards filled with numbers. “Making people able to see all of the data is itself not really helpful,” he said. Instead, Rotate focuses on defining the right questions before designing solutions. “It’s about being really focused on what drives the value out of those things.”
One example is Rotate’s Sales Cockpit, which helps sales teams prioritise opportunities based on network-wide needs.
“Salespeople are very good at talking to customers. It’s a bit unfair to make them also expert data analysts. What we’re trying to do is pre-digest some of that data, make it easier for them to see an opportunity, and show why it’s worth pursuing.”
“Head office will make a network optimisation, and they’ll say: these are the O&Ds we need to sell, we need to prioritise certain origins or destinations,” Keyrouse explained. “Then it goes to the Sales Cockpit, where the salespeople can choose between initiatives in a way that aligns with the network’s overall strategy.”
Looking at the months ahead, Keyrouse flagged a major concern for the industry: volatility driven by trade policy changes. “I think the most urgent challenge for the air cargo industry in 2025 will be the uncertainty brought on by tariffs, changes to de minimis rules, and the rapidly changing nature of those,” he warned.
Companies will need to balance short-term nimbleness with long-term discipline. “What I hope does not happen this year is that people get too caught up in 2025 and forget about 2026, 2027, and 2028,” he added.
Rotate sees both opportunity and risk in this environment. “We’re always busy when the market is in super growth mode, and we’re always busy when the market is turbulent and uncertain,” Keyrouse said. “That’s when people really need data to understand and have visibility into what’s happening.”
While ‘digitalisation’ and ‘AI’ have been air cargo buzzwords for years, Keyrouse believes the conversation is maturing. “The industry has gone from just talking about AI as a blanket statement to now being much more specific and focused about what they’re trying to address,” he said.
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Rotate’s solutions aim to tackle concrete operational challenges—such as steering salespeople towards optimal opportunities, reallocating capacity, or improving network profitability—not abstract digital goals. As he put it: “It’s not about having the biggest dashboard. It’s about making the right decisions.”
