- GSSAs are evolving from intermediaries to strategic partners, helping forwarders access commercial incentives, operational efficiencies, and smaller airports closer to final destinations, while adapting to complex airline networks.
- Regional airports are gaining prominence post-pandemic, offering digitalised infrastructure, faster service, and competitive alternatives to traditional hubs, enabling forwarders and airlines to optimise routes and reduce bottlenecks.
- Growth in supply chain expertise, nearshoring trends, and sustainability initiatives—including promoting sustainable aviation fuel and efficient routings—are becoming key components of the GSSA value proposition.
Airlines are tightening networks, regional airports are gaining ground, and forwarders are seeking fewer but more capable partners. At the same time, staffing shortages and digital disruption pose long-term questions for the airfreight industry. In that environment, once viewed as an intermediary role, general sales and service agents (GSSAs) are increasingly being asked to deliver strategic value—balancing commercial strength, operational expertise, and sustainability support.
Airline consolidation is often seen as a threat to competition, but the picture is more nuanced. “Consolidations do, on the surface, appear to reduce competition,” Matthew Taylor, business development director at 4RCargo, said. “However, when combined with the right GSSA, these consolidations allow airlines to offer huge benefits for forwarders.”
Working with a GSSA, forwarders can gain access to commercial incentives as well as combined operational management plans across an airline group. “This provides customers an easy-to-manage, value-added service offering that allows them to shorten their supplier list, while maintaining prices and quality service,” he said.
But the benefits are not automatic. Taylor stressed that GSSAs must adapt quickly to increasingly complex airline models. “The GSSA must deliver solutions for airlines that encompass the multifaceted services they offer,” he noted. For example, forwarders can benefit from using smaller airports that are closer to final destinations, thanks to the breadth of certain airline networks. “This creates a cost and time benefit for the forwarder, while simultaneously benefiting the airlines,” he added.
Reshape the map
The role of airports in cargo flows has also shifted since the pandemic, with regional hubs becoming more competitive.
“Whilst the traditional mantra directed forwarders to consolidate through key gateways like Frankfurt, Amsterdam and Heathrow, this is swiftly changing,” Taylor observed. “Since the Covid-19 pandemic, regional airports have been liberated from the chokehold of key hubs.”
These airports now often provide more digitalised infrastructure, higher operational success rates, and faster service delivery. That has allowed forwarders to look beyond traditional gateways and use smaller airports that can compete at scale.
The same pattern is visible at destination points. “The US is a good example,” Taylor said. “For forwarders, it can be more valuable to avoid bottlenecks in Chicago or Los Angeles by utilising underused belly capacity into Pittsburgh or Portland. It expands the use of these smaller airports and creates new opportunities for forwarders and airlines alike.”
Growth, expertise and sustainability
While some in the industry believe GSSAs face a trade-off between expanding their geographic footprint and deepening vertical expertise, Taylor disagrees: “Within the European market, these two objectives complement each other, so we do not see this as a trade-off.”
He pointed to shifts in supply chains, particularly in automotive manufacturing. “The traditional German automotive industry is increasingly investing in near-shoring options within Central and Eastern Europe,” Taylor explained. “This is upending longstanding supply chains, and a GSSA must be able to forecast and adapt to these trends as fast as possible.”
Sustainability is also becoming central. Roughly 25 percent of tonnage worldwide is now managed through GSSAs, a figure expected to rise. “Airlines cannot ignore the considerable influence GSSAs have with customers,” Taylor said. At 4RCargo, he added, sustainability is embedded in operations. “We engage with airlines to investigate promoting SAF as standard on quotes, as well as examining all shipments 24 to 48 hours before departure to ensure routings are as efficient as possible.”
