Cloud computing and process improvement to reduce costs were called for by the presidents of China Eastern holding company and the Shanghai Airport Authority (SAA), at the opening of the International Air Transport Association’s ninth World Cargo Symposium.

Held in Shanghai on Tuesday 10 March, China Eastern holding company president Liu Shaoyong tells the audience databases and the Internet had to be adopted to achieve necessary change. In the same morning session, SAA president, Jing Yiming, stressed the importance of process improvement to strengthen what he called the, “distribution capability,” of the Shanghai airports. The authority oversees two airports, Pudong International Airport and Hongqiao International Airport. 

He also emphasized the importance of a 24-hour a day, seven day a week operation, citing government support as key to the around-the-clock working pattern’s improvement.

For airlines, Shaoyong says: “Industry needs to take advantage of technology. I think we need to have a huge database and Internet and cloud service. Only this way can the industry share in the economics of recovery.”

For Shaoyong, the emergence of online shopping and e-commerce meant that air cargo has to become a more efficient transport system. 

For Yiming, express services delivering e-commerce products domestically was an important development for the airports and he says that the airlines catering to that market would get all the facilities and support the authority could provide.

He adds that the world’s top 20 freight forwarders all operate at Shanghai airports and his authority was committed to process improvement and providing facilities and reducing costs to meet their customers’ needs.