In a bid to revolutionise communication in the airfreight and aviation industry between all stakeholders, EDIfly has unveiled its technological approach.

EDIfly’s offering provides a realistic means of secured communication based on existing industry protocols that the vast majority of the stakeholders support.

“EDIfly takes this mechanism to the internet age by providing end-to-end encryption, an instant proof of delivery,” Ingo Roessler, Chief Commercial Officer of EDIfly, said.

Digitising the air cargo sector has been long overdue, especially for airlines outside the top tier, as they were often underinvested in systems that supported collaboration. Furthermore, the integration of various systems was hindered by volume-based charging models employed by connectivity providers.

However, EDIfly’s latest technology has taken a new approach, allowing real-time access to airlines’ reservation systems and greatly benefiting the distribution of air cargo services.

Stand-out data security

One of the key factors that make EDIfly’s technology unique is its approach to data security. Unlike traditional methods that rely on private networks or fixed links, EDIfly secures the transmission of messages using end-to-end encryption over the public internet’s vast routing capacity.

“EDIfly’s technology provides true end-to-end encryption on par with what people perceive is only provided through bespoke VPN links,” Roessler explained.

EDIfly’s high-performance message broker integrates applications across various ground-based services in aviation, including airports, ground handlers, logistics services, cargo system providers, and even governments.

Cutting costs

The cost reduction offered by EDIfly is another enticing feature for industry players. The savings can be achieved in multiple areas, such as avoiding transaction- or volume-related charges and replacing costly infrastructures, eliminating internal integration hubs.

“EDIfly allows users to synchronise content without the need to observe volume-based charging, improving the quality of information in real time, when it happens and not in a batch run that only happens in defined intervals,” Roessler added.

READ: Wallenborn embeds EDIfly into its transport management system

Easily integrates across exisiting landscapes

A major advantage of EDIfly is its seamless integration with existing IATA addresses used by various service providers, including SITA, ARINC, LH Systems, and Amadeus.

“Every party deploying the EDIfly’s software can keep their existing addresses. SABRE actually uses EDIfly as its backbone service for the entire messaging landscape of its services,” Roessler explained.

In terms of infrastructure requirements, EDIfly operates on basic infrastructure and standard software components, making it accessible to companies with varying degrees of technological advancement.

READ: SmartKargo embeds EDIfIy to support encrypted messaging

Capable capacity and unrivalled resilience

EDIfly boasts an impressive message handling capacity which is not restricted by character limits like legacy exchanges.

“EDIfly is not restricted to 5,000 characters like legacy exchanges, to avoid truncated exchanges. Of course, systems at each end must be able to process such content. The technical limitation for each exchange is 2 GB, with an average size of 300 kb, we are very much on the safe side and most exchanges happen in less than one second,” Roessler said.

To ensure high-availability infrastructure for mission-critical services, EDIfly’s software can be adapted to various industry-standard mechanisms. SABRE, one of the industry’s biggest players, has already embraced EDIfly’s high-availability solution as core infrastructure supporting all services.

Despite the evident advantages EDIfly offers, the airfreight industry as a whole is not moving fast enough to fully capitalise on the potential presented by technology. Many efforts to introduce new standards have been met with challenges, delaying progress. In this context, EDIfly’s backward-compatible mechanism emerges as an efficient and effective solution that addresses the vast majority of the industry’s needs.

Time for technology

Despite the opportunities presented by innovative operations, EDIfly believes that the speed at which technology is being embraced in the industry is nowhere near fast enough.

“Much energy has been wasted on trying to introduce new standards, like Cargo XML, which can possibly be categorised a failure, but losing the industry a decade or so,” Roessler warned.

“I fear that many people underestimate the complexity of rolling out new standards on a global scale. EDIfly offers a backwards-compatible mechanism that probably supports 98.5% of all exchanges needed in this business, with existing systems and addressing logic,” he continued.”

With its technological approach and the support of its partners, EDIfly can actively transform the airfreight industry by enhancing communication, improving data security, and streamlining processes, paving the way for a more efficient and connected future in aviation.

“Going viral by design as all EDIfly users are automatically connected to each other. As our founder and Chief Technology Officer Anders Dam Jensen would put it: ’The more. The merrier!,” Roessler added.