At the moment, eFreight is an important topic for Lufthansa Cargo and the entire industry. Why is the rollout happening in Munich?
Angelika Kreil: Because we have an excellent test environment here. Munich, with its international connections, is in an outstanding position. Besides, we are exactly the right size with regards to cargo volume and the number of employees. We want to play a pioneering role here in Munich, and get the eAWB up and running, so that the stations and areas that come after us can profit from our experience.

What problems have you faced?
The project stands and falls with the quality of the data. Here we’ve made a large step into the digital world. That’s why a thorough analysis of the incoming eAWBs and paper air waybills is essential. Both we and our partners have to overcome many hurdles, especially with regard to improving the quality of the data. We have to take what we learn and work together to put it into practice as quickly as possible. Since Lufthansa Cargo defined the eAWB target process in March, our project team has been focusing on the points that have to be changed.

Can you give us a concrete example?
The focus is on the adjustments in IT, the reorganization of processes and the use of new technologies, like the Toughbook, for example. That’s a robust tablet computer which is equipped with a scanner and a camera. When we physically accept a consignment, the Toughbook displays all of the shipment data for which paper AWBs were previously necessary. That streamlines the process considerably, since the matching of papers to freight is eliminated. 

How is the conversion going?
The extremely important data quality initiative, which we started in the middle of this year, has shown excellent results. The process is solid, but without our customers and their commitment it won’t work. On the marketing side, our col-
leagues in sales will be communicating more intensively with our customers in order to convince as many of them as possible of the advantages of the eAWB. That’s the only way Lufthansa Cargo will be able to reach the targeted penetration rate. To keep all of our employees up to date, we’ve put up an eAWB bulletin board here in Munich: it shows the details of all of the new processes and requirements.

Better quality through...

• fewer manual entries.
• fewer missing AWBs.
• fewer corrections in customs data.

Time saving through...
shorter waits for export document receiving simplified document handling at point of departure.

Lower costs through...
elimination of paper and printing digital archiving streamlined processes.

More sustainability through...
significant reduction of CO2 emissions with every shipment reduction of document volume by more than 64 percent.