London Heathrow Airport is the latest Worldwide Flight Services (WFS) cargo station to introduce CargoKiosk technology.
The technology aims to simplify and digitise the operation, helping customers to optimise their valuable driver resources. Traditionally, drivers arriving onsite go to the station’s reception desk, where their paperwork is checked manually before they are assigned a loading bay.
With CargoKiosk, the driver, vehicle and cargo authorisation process is completed electronically prior to the truck arriving on-site, so the driver only has to enter their ID and follow the touchscreen prompts on the kiosk to conduct the full acceptance and delivery process. When a suitable door becomes available, they receive an SMS or app notification and can then move their truck to the assigned loading bay.
Pedro Garcia, group chief information officer at WFS, said: “CargoKiosk is another important part of our digital roadmap. WFS’ landside digitalisation project – one part of this roadmap – will bring improvements in service level agreements and truck handling times.
“It consists of three elements: digital pre-announcement, where freight forwarders send us advance notification of their booking; driver self-service using the kiosk concept or smartphone app; and doors management to optimise the allocation of trucks to doors and even pre-stage freight next to the correct door in advance.
“These are all meaningful improvements for our customers and we aim to do more by working hand-in-hand with the cargo community systems at the airports we serve.”
WFS first introduced the CargoKiosk technology in Brussels in 2019, with a further launch in Amsterdam this summer. Following next month’s launch at Heathrow, 2022 will see the digital process introduced at other major cargo stations including Paris/ Charles de Gaulle, Liège, Barcelona, Madrid, Milan and Frankfurt.
The company is also developing similar concepts for its operations at New York JFK and in South Africa.
