While most digital initiatives in air cargo still orbit around booking tools and customer portals, a quieter, and potentially more transformative, use of AI is underway behind the scenes. At American Airlines Cargo, predictive algorithms are now targeting a stubborn operational problem: freight that doesn’t show up as booked.
Beyond the booking
“We look at our booking data, and we actually make a determination, or we forecast ahead of time, what our customers will actually show up with,” said Brian Hodges, Head of Strategy at American Airlines Cargo. “They may tell us 1,000 pounds, but we know through our AI engine that it’s going to be 900 or 1,200.”
Interview with Brian Hodges: Watch the video online
The approach reflects a shift from transactional automation to true operational forecasting. AI is no longer simply matching inputs to processes, it’s correcting for the unreliability of human estimates. “We don’t necessarily just focus on booking,” Hodges said. “We look at anything that our folks are doing in the warehouse, in the customer experience call centres, and we try to convert that process over to a digitised process.”
According to Hodges, this system is already live. The booking system updates weights based on expected variance, smoothing the handoff from digital promise to physical delivery. “We’ll go ahead and update our bookings just to make sure that the operation runs as soon as possible,” he said.
Automation as internal leverage
Much of the current automation at American Airlines Cargo is intentionally invisible to customers. The focus is on removing friction in back-end processes, from truck rebooking to accounting, rather than reinventing front-end interfaces.
“We utilise automation and digitisation to really take any task that’s repetitive, and particularly ones that can be prone to inaccuracies or discrepancies, we try to automate that to improve accuracy, turnaround time, and just improve everybody’s job overall,” said Hodges.
That internal lens is also shaping workforce planning. “Anything we can do to free up people’s time and energy with menial tasks or repetitive tasks, we can actually unlock their ingenuity,” he said. “All that has done is result in them being able to go out and be more creative in the marketplace and find better solutions.”
For now, the strategy is focused on tools that reduce error, compress cycle times, and support human decision-making, not replace it. As Hodges put it: “We actually measure ourselves overall for the business… from how bookings are made to how trucks are rebooked, to how we solve things on the back end.”
From manual tasks to human problem-solving
One of the clearest outcomes of American’s digital strategy has been a shift in how frontline teams use their time. Rather than removing staff, automation is designed to free them from low-value, repetitive tasks.
“Our philosophy, especially on the operation side, is that anything we can do to free up people’s time and energy with menial tasks or repetitive tasks, we can actually unlock their ingenuity,” Hodges said. “Their ability to tackle problems in the warehouse for customers.”
This is less about labour reduction than labour reallocation. “They’re utilising their time better,” Hodges added. “And we’ve looked to repeat that everywhere we can.”
