Against the backdrop of record-breaking attendance in Dubai, the 2025 World Cargo Symposium (WCS) closed with a strong call for faster innovation, greater collaboration, and a reimagined approach to digitalisation and sustainability across the air cargo industry. From AI breakthroughs to grassroots innovation and regulatory hurdles, the closing discussions painted a vivid picture of an industry navigating complexity while embracing transformation.

“In a world that is anything but predictable, air cargo continues to deliver,” said Brendan Sullivan, IATA’s Global Head of Cargo.

“On an average day, 180,000 tons of goods reach their destination by air. This is the lifeblood of global trade, driving growth, creating jobs and spreading prosperity.”

Reflecting on the week’s key themes, Sullivan noted: “During the opening plenary, it was very clear that continued collaboration is necessary to achieve these goals, and we need to do it faster by working together, by embracing digitalisation as it underpins, together with all of our supply chain partners.”

He described digitalisation as a dominant force: “The digitalisation stream was, once again, the behemoth on day two. Systems integration to drive visibility is what’s being asked for and needed.” Sullivan emphasised that “trust and transparency along the supply chain is becoming even more critical” and pointed to the “adoption of ONE Record as the preferred industry standard for smooth and efficient data exchange” as a common theme throughout the event.

Touching on other priorities, he stated: “The sustainability stream discussed waste reduction strategies in the air cargo industry and provided examples of how the adoption of circular economy principles can transform air cargo by minimising waste and optimising efficiencies.” On compliance, Sullivan was clear: “Compliance is our business,” urging the sector to unite against “evolving security and compliance threats.” He added: “The importance of planning data, of innovation and the right software, and how that supports us as an industry to deliver more sustainable resource forecasting.”

“It’s been wonderful to see everyone here from across the air cargo supply chain come together and make our industry move forward,” he concluded.

Building standards

Andres Bianchi, CEO of LATAM Cargo and Chair of the IATA Cargo Advisory Council, underscored the transformative potential of collaborative digital strategies. “When you look at the problem and instead of focusing on the tool, you focus on the problem you need to solve, and you connect it to a tool that’s already there… we can deploy this much faster, much more efficiently than by creating our own solution.”

He warned against fragmented approaches: “The only really effective way to do something is to collaborate in the beginning… how do we manage to break the silos and connect each other?”

Bianchi also acknowledged regulatory inertia: “Sometimes it takes a lot longer than we would like… it involves regulators and certain stakeholders that are beyond our control.”

On sustainability, he encouraged a broader view: “We tend to, by default, focus on CO2 reductions… but elements like waste reduction continue to be critical. For example, we move a lot of perishables. We need to minimise the loss of food.”

Rethinking innovation from the ground up

The Innovation Showcase brought fresh energy, with Daniel Leng of LATAM Cargo Chile and Sabari Ramnath of Unisys urging the industry to redefine what innovation truly means.

“It’s mandatory to create a safe space where people feel comfortable bringing ideas,” said Leng. He stressed that not all breakthroughs are digital: “We showed three different ideas that are absolutely changing the way we use wood in our warehouses… they are recycling, they’re reusing, and we’re actually saving money in the process.”

“Innovation could be anything that can solve the problems in an easy way… it is not thinking outside the box, it’s thinking there is no box,” said Ramnath. He cautioned against blindly embracing technology: “AI is not a panacea… customers are not going to buy our solutions—they want to solve their problems.”

AI in cargo

A standout session on artificial intelligence revealed how AI is already reshaping everything from quoting and pricing to anomaly detection and customer service.

“Now, when we sign a contract… the implementation is faster than signing the contract. The legal department takes more time than the IT department now,” said Matt Petot, CEO of CargoAi.

He described agentic AI’s rapid progress: “It can read email, take the price in your system and send back a quote… we are at this level of accuracy already.”

Mukundh Parthasarathy of RTS observed: “Our industry is more resistant to change… we prefer stability over experimentation. That will change. You’re going to be left alone if you don’t adapt to change.”

Gaetan Van Diemen of Pandora Intelligence stressed the support role of AI: “AI will not take away the decision-making, but will actually help the human substantiate the decision-making.”

But risks remain. “It’s a junk in, junk out model,” Parthasarathy warned. “AI can hallucinate. It’ll make up stuff… there’s no accountability.” Van Diemen added: “We need to be careful that we regulate in a way which doesn’t become a blocker.”

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