e-Commerce and the future of air cargo

The rise of e-Commerce has dramatically changed the way
businesses sell goods or services to customers with the virtual
reality taking over from the traditional way of going to stores to
purchase something or visiting companies to transact business.
Now people can buy anything within the comforts of their home
or office via their computers or even mobile phones. It’s fast,
reliable and efficient which suits the pace of today’s digital age.
Defined as the purchase of any goods or services online via the
internet or online social networks, e-Commerce has also
changed the way we pay and the way the supply chain do
business.



It has also paved way for certain innovations such as internet
marketing, social media, online transaction processing,
electronic data interchange, system solutions, cloud data
collection systems and the list goes on.
The English inventor and IT expert Michael Aldrich is widely
credited for introducing online shopping back in 1979 to enable
online transaction processing between consumers and
businesses.



By the 1990s, the World Wide Web or the internet was born.
English computer scientist Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee is
credited for it along with the invention of the so-called Hypertext
Transfer Protocol or HTTP, the foundation of data communication
in the internet. Then, Yahoo and Google came.
But it wasn’t until Facebook and other social media sites came
about in mid-2000 that the concept of e-commerce
tremendously grew and became global.



For the air cargo industry, e-commerce is definitely a boon, with
experts pointing to the modern electronic commerce as the way
forward on how freight and logistics companies will grow their
business.



More than 60 emerging markets across Asia, Africa, South
America and elsewhere across the globe, now tightly embracing
e-commerce, will positively impact the air cargo and logistics
world. And Air Cargo Update has the story for you.
In this edition, we’re also carrying the story of the first Emirati and
a woman at that, leading the National Association of Freight and
Logistics (NAFL), Ms. Nadia Abdul Azziz, who is pushing the
industry to greater heights globally.



For our cover story, we take a deeper look at Emirates SkyCargo’s
growing importance globally, its newly-launched SkyPharma
and one of the men behind its success.



On The Lounge, we’re delighted to have interviewed an
entrepreneur whose father helped shape the aviation civil
infrastructure landscape in the Middle East.
And of course, the latest news and features on airlines, airports,
aviation, air cargo and more.



Gemma Casas

Editor