A ‘Digital Green Lane’ for digitising the landside pick-up and delivery process at Brussels Airport is being fully implemented by eight freight forwarders and four ground handling agents today (1 June).

Combined, these companies represent 75 per cent of freight volumes at the airport. They are: APA, BDP International, DHL Global Forwarding, DSV, Expeditors, Geodis, Kuehne + Nagel, Nippon Express, Aviapartner, dnata, Swissport and WFS.

Brussels Airport and Air Cargo Belgium said the implementation would take the ‘BRUcloud’ data sharing platform, hosted by partner Nallian, to “the next level”. BRUcloud currently features 12 different applications which all digitise a specific aspect of the air cargo process.

The Digital Green Lane is a uniform standardised pick-up and delivery process between freight forwarders and ground handling agents, supported by the BRUcloud applications. This means that all freight is being picked up or dropped off at a registered time slot, all freight information is shared digitally throughout the process, and all actions during the pick-up and drop off process are registered by the driver on a mobile device.

The applications that make this possible are ‘Slot Booking’, ‘Freight Management’, ‘Acceptance and Delivery’ and ‘Digital Desk’. By making use of these digital applications, all partners involved hope to be able to avoid waiting lines and optimise their capacity and resource planning. The users of the Digital Green Lane applications will not only be working more efficient and paperless, it also gives them a priority service when picking up or delivering freight.

“We are proud to announce the commitment of these 12 pioneers, each of them engaged with a clear focus on a community approach, for the benefit of the entire cargo community at Brussels Airport,” said Air Cargo Belgium’s chairman David Bellon.

“Their courage and strength are exemplary, and we wish to thank them for that. By establishing a single process, fully digitised, we aim to increase efficiency and visibility of the cargo flows which will greatly benefit importers/exporters choosing Brussels Airport as their air cargo gateway. These 12 companies that are forming the coalition of the willing, are vastly convinced that working together with the community is the only way to gain speed in the digital transition.

“With the support of the forwarder/airline and airline handling agent cluster, we will engage more and more companies in the next coming months. This ‘Big Bang’ is a crucial first step in the roadmap to digitise the airfreight industry. Air Cargo Belgium is planning more innovations that increase quality and efficiency in the near future, as this digital revolution forms part of the European Green Deal and the contribution of the air cargo industry to achieve its sustainability goals.”

Brussels Airport’s director cargo & logistics Geert Aerts commented: “Digital transformation is at the core of our growth strategy with the cargo community at Brussels Airport. It will further enhance the efficiency, safety and compliance of our business processes, whilst meeting our sustainability goals.

“Having these 12 companies commit to the further rollout of the Digital Green Lane is an important and giant step for our airport, which will benefit their processes and services as well. Thanks to our BRUcloud platform, we are able to accelerate digitisation, and make paperless processes the new standard. This realisation is a great example of what gives us an edge towards other airports, becoming the first fully digital cargo airport community globally.”

More companies will be able join the Digital Green Lane on 1 September. BRUcargo is aiming to be the first fully digitised air cargo community in the world.