Awery Aviation Software is different from other tech providers in the air cargo industry – and that observation does not just come from the bright yellow, gel-filled, Awery-branded stress duck that its CEO and Founder, Vitaly Smilianets, hands me as our interview comes to an end, despite that alone being a stand-out and apparently much sought-after giveaway at industry events*. Rather the impression arises from learning just how many aspects of the air cargo industry are digitally covered by Awery, and its approach to developing those individual solutions. You could say, Awery definitely has all its ducks in a row. Here are CargoForwarder Global’s takeaways from the meeting on the fringe of Aviation Connect in Athens, recently.
Metaphorically-speaking, whilst other software solution providers might offer customers a coloring-in book as in their digital marketplace being a standard image for all interested parties to connect to, Awery comes across as more of a join-the-dots provider because it sits down with each customer, builds solutions in close collaboration, and then supports them through the tool’s adoption and beyond, to create the final picture together. And that picture can be a marketplace such as Awery’s CargoBooking platform, or a series of ERP (enterprise resource planning) core modules offering cargo, operations or crew management, a full accounting system (audited by Ernst & Young), and HR support, warehouse inventory solutions, service provider management, CRM tools, tracking support, etc. A seemingly endless list covering the whole air cargo process chain.
Is there any area that Awery deliberately won’t go into, CargoForwarder Global asks. “MRO,” Vitaly answers “It’s too cluttered. And passenger services, too – there are already too many providers out there.”
Building the connective layers of air cargo
Even without those two aviation areas, the company certainly has more than enough to be getting on with, and that is reflected in its growth over the past few years. It now employs close to 100 people and has, this year, placed an emphasis on management structures, bringing in top level executives to ensure a clear focus on sales, product steering, and development. “We need layers of management structure, now that we are a bigger company – and we’re still growing on the development side, too,” Vitaly says. “We’re also trying to use AI as much as possible within the company, to speed up project development and internal documentation processes. AI means a more efficient use of resources. Add four new people and you get the capacity of four more people. Add four people in combination with AI, and you get the capacity of ten people,” he illustrates.
Leading GSA-solution provider plus rapidly-growing platform
Awery sees itself as a market leader for Cargo GSAs and counts 45 companies among its clients. It is growing as a TCM provider for smaller and mid-sized airlines, and its CargoBooking platform now ranks 4th on pure [booking] numbers. “We’re still a young platform and get around 10-12,000 bookings a month, and around 30-40,000 quotes a month. In fact, we just crossed the 1 million quotes milestone a couple of months ago. Our focus is on getting more airlines on board. Currently, we’re close to 400-500 bookings a day, and I think by the second half of next year, we should reach 1,000 bookings a day.” He points out that the platform is not only used as a marketplace, but also an airline/GSA-internal quote tool, and that rate correspondence to clients can also run through CargoBooking.
Growing CargoBooking is a “chicken and egg problem,” he says, “You need forwarder numbers to attract airlines, and you need airline capacity in order to attract forwarders.” Awery is therefore signing as many airlines as possible, growing country by country: Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Spain, Portugal, Germany and France are covered; Austria and Switzerland are next, then the Czech Republic and Poland. South Africa is increasing, and the US is planned for next year, he reveals.
Awery as the Uber of air cargo
When it comes to providing a digital platform, Vitaly underlines a key differentiator that sets Awery apart from its peers, who appear to charge both airlines and freight forwarders for access and features: “My vision is that cargo marketplaces such as our CargoBooking are similar to what you have with Booking.com or Uber; the customer shouldn’t pay for that service. […] So, my concept is not to charge freight forwarders for any kind of marketing services, because I don’t think, if you book on Booking.com, that you need to pay, for example, an extra USD 10 for booking. It just doesn’t make sense as you’re already paying them through the hotel booking – and the airline is already paying to put its capacity on the platform.”
A second differentiator, he says, is that CargoBooking was originally created as a quote and booking platform for GSA, as opposed to a general booking platform – meaning that it gets many more quotes which are then converted into bookings. In a volatile market, this feature is valued as it allows airline salespeople to be more involved in the pricing and sales strategy.
The third differentiator is Awery’s after-sales care. “The biggest barrier in digital adoption, is change management. When a process has run for 15 to 20 years, changing it is the greatest effort,” he tells me, so Awery supports customers with a dedicated customer team. “It is not possible to sell [a digital product] and forget,”, he stresses, “customers must be accompanied.”
The convenience of AI
Awery’s recently launched AI-feature, ‘Ask Awery’, opens huge efficiency potential when it comes to reporting. In effect, companies can create their own AI admin agent which then generates dashboard diagrams showing whichever reports or KPI developments they require, having been given access to company data. “You can create an agent and tell them to send you your top customers, or the top origins and destinations and average yields for the previous week, for example, every Monday, and it will do it – enabling you to save a lot of time as you don’t need to wait for someone to prepare this report – and, you can make far more efficient decisions,” Vitaly explains and goes on to say “I think, the future is that these agents can talk to each other – for example, you could allow a third-party agent [forwarder] to access your [airline] data and do the booking or get a quotation”. These are nice-to-have possibilities, he feels, but the industry is still wary of the implications. Therefore “We can invest much more in understanding exactly what is visible, what is controllable, and you can then limit the data, accordingly.” Upon CFG’s question regarding security, he emphasizes that the AI tools are currently not allowed to touch, update, or edit any data – they have read-only access. In future, based on the relevant use-cases, the access could be opened a little more.
Lots lined up for the future
Aside from the many hackathons that Awery participates in and often wins, the company has a clear roadmap for what’s next. Its IATA CO2 Connect for Cargo ERP integration, announced in MAR26, is being rebuilt internally, with the tool due to go live by the end of OCT26. Next up is dynamic pricing, being built based on discussions with a number of customers, to improve capacity management and market decisions. “Awery knows the subject well, as we have talked to operations from the start and built revenue management tools together with our customers,” he states.
One trend he sees with the rise of AI, and that he warns against, is aviation companies increasingly using white-coding to create in-house IT builds. “You cannot just build a system and then freeze it, as it quickly becomes outdated and fails – white-coding ends painfully,” he says, urging companies to leave the IT development to the experts who ensure that the tools are always up-to-date and in line with regulations and requirements: “At Awery, our main product is our business, so we always need to develop, to adopt and to connect to all required third parties, and we always need to implement new standards,” he concludes.
(*Check out Awery’s Facebook page to see an example, if you haven’t yet had the fortune to possess one.)
