AGIFORS Cargo Study Group 2004
Technical Program

Presentations ( Based on submitted abstracts to date* )

Selling Cargo RM Solutions in Today's Airline Economic Environment
Scott Hinshaw – American Airlines Cargo

Airlines continue to battle through the most challenging economic environment the industry has ever seen. This presentation is intended to give insights and ideas for justifying Revenue Management projects in today's difficult economic environment. Discussion will center on estimating benefits, common pitfalls that vendors make, and an overview of how projects get approved at Airlines.

Revenue Management at Virgin Atlantic Cargo
Kristian Nielsen – Virgin Atlantic Cargo

Technical challenges in deciding the business rules while implementing a new revenue management system 

Overview of KLM Cargo
Wouter Couzy – Decision Support Department, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines

KLM Cargo has implemented Revenue Management by "small steps with real impact". Key factors for success have been management commitment and focus on the real world and people making it work. Several databases and tools have been developed to support contract and Request/Reply optimization across the network. The presentation will focus on the process and implementation of Revenue Management. The approach for setting the levels for minimum required margins (bidprices) will be discussed in more detail.

Key success factors to revenue management at Lufthansa Cargo
Jens Froehlich – Lufthansa Cargo

Importance of  value-based steering and change management  process which were key success factors to the implementation of a new revenue management system.

Archetypal science technique in Cargo systems
P.R.Narayanan – Science and Research Group, PROS

Improvements in technology and the resulting data availability have made it possible to apply advanced leading edge science technique in Cargo systems. The forecasting challenges include a relatively small booking window, and demand values for two variables weight and volume. Implementation of a Bayesian Hierarchical framework for forecasting weight and volume and some forecast measures will be discussed. The significance of two capacity constraints, for each flight leg - one for weight and another for volume, to the optimization modeling and the practical effects will also be discussed.

Fleeting with origin-destination passenger and cargo revenue
Diego Klabjan, Rivi Sandhu; Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL

Due to the decline in passenger revenue, cargo revenue is on the raise. For some combination carriers, it consists 30% of the total revenue. Traditionally in fleeting only passenger revenue is captured. We propose a fleeting model that captures passenger and cargo revenue. The model assumes origin-destination booking control based on bid prices. 

Container Management at American Airlines
Tassio Carvalho – Operations Research and Decision Support Department, American Airlines Cargo

Wide-body aircraft carry freight, bags and mail in standard containers known
as ULDs. There are several types of ULDs and their availability across airports in an airline network depends on the network characteristics. It also depends on having adequate controls and being responsive to future needs. This talk describes a set of processes employed at American to improve the management of ULDs. These processes draw on techniques of linear  programming, inventory management and statistics.

Commercial Airline Mail Demand Forecasting
Imed BenAbdallah – Operations Research Department, Delta Technologies, Delta Airlines

In April 2003 an online pricing bid auction for USPS commercial airline transport mail took place. DL/UA proposed a joint routing solution. In May 2003, USPS awarded the joint carriers 59% of the solicitation volume, yielding a 50% increase to each carrier over pre-contract levels. The contract engages every carrier to submit a load plan 28 days in advance. The load plan consists of assigning the mail demand over the carrier routings. The accuracy of the mail demand is indeed crucial for USPS and the commercial carriers. It is significantly important for USPS to receive routings with the right projected demand to minimize adjustments and then capacity violation. On the other hand, the commercial carrier would like to avoid any hub congestion due to unplanned mail tender. The objective of this presentation is to discuss the USPS mail demand forecasting. Data and seasonality consistency are the main difficulties for an accurate forecast.

Ten Challenges in the Air Cargo Revenue Management
Mariana LaDue – Operations Research Group, Sabre Airlines Solutions

We focus on ten major challenges in the air cargo business and revenue management in the way we see them in our daily work as providers of airline solutions. Our discussion starts with the air cargo network and multiple routing options, continues with the air cargo clients, contracts, product and services and finishes with the cargo capacity, demand, booking behavior and IT infrastructure and business processes. 

* Technical Program is subject to change

 

Call for papers

Come and share with us your ideas, thoughts, current trends, philosophies, and latest technological advances on topics ranging from airport security, airport systems, ground resource management, maintenance, tactical planning, and operations control. 

If you are interested in presenting at the study group meeting, please complete the on-line registration form and submit it directly via the www.  As always, talks are subject to approval, and time slots are available on a first come, first serve basis - so if you are interested, act now!

The AGIFORS Cargo Study Group 2004 conference technical program is currently being put together, for more information please contact raja.kasilingam@sabre.com.

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