• AI-powered freight forecasting in air cargo: American Airlines Cargo leverages predictive AI algorithms to accurately anticipate discrepancies between booked and actual freight, improving operational planning and ensuring smoother cargo handling.
• Automation for back-end efficiency: Repetitive, error-prone tasks in warehouse operations, accounting, and truck rebooking are automated, enhancing workflow efficiency, reducing errors, and optimizing air cargo operations without affecting customer-facing systems.
• Workforce optimisation and productivity: Digital tools free staff from low-value manual tasks, enabling air cargo teams to focus on problem-solving, operational decision-making, and high-value activities, boosting overall productivity and service quality.

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 1,000lb, but we know through our AI engine that it’s going to be 900lb or 1,200lb.”

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, particularly ones that can be prone to inaccuracies or discrepancies, and 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 from menial 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 to do anything we can do to free up people’s time and energy from menial or repetitive tasks, unlocking their ingenuity,” Hodges said. “Their ability to tackle problems in the warehouse for customers has improved.”

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.”