2024 ATW Cargo Operator Of The Year: Air Canada Cargo

Air Canada Cargo has become Canada’s largest air cargo provider as measured by cargo capacity, with a presence in over 50 countries and self-handled hubs in Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, London, and Frankfurt. As the dedicated air freight division of Air Canada, Air Canada Cargo offers air freight lift and connectivity across six continents using Air Canada’s domestic and international passenger and freighter flights and trucking services. It has also become a major committed partner and provider of humanitarian, environmental and conservation services that are benefiting people worldwide.

Air Canada Cargo has invested in technology to make digital transformation a key pillar of its commercial strategy, building a customer-centric digital environment that provides valuable self-serve scheduling and booking tools to better support customers. This digital environment also moves Air Canada Cargo’s accounts to a cloud-based system, reducing the need for paper airway bills.

Air Canada Cargo was the first North American carrier to join the CargoWise platform, giving customers real-time access to schedules, pricing and booking.

A state-of-the-art cold chain facility located at its global hub in Toronto, which boasts 30,000-sq-ft of dedicated, temperature-controlled storage, enables the support of end-to-end cold shipping needs for a wide variety of goods.

The company also offers two solutions for its pharma shipments: AC Absolute for high-value and sensitive healthcare products, and AC Pharmacair for products transported in insulated boxes, for which there are two options: Pharmacair Simple for products that require extended room temperature or ambient conditions, and Pharmacair Plus for products requiring a cold or controlled room temperature.

Other new initiatives include the creation of a specialized team that monitors cargo connections and proactively rebooks shipments if there’s a risk of delay. Another dedicated team oversees all medical and live animal shipments, while a new system unifies the sales and customer service teams into one optimized solution. The company has also built a dedicated interline department that oversees booking with other carriers so that all freight moves seamlessly, regardless of which carrier is managing the shipment.

With its fleet of Boeing 767 freighters, Air Canada Cargo has become an internationally recognized company that is also giving back to communities around the world. The company has transported personal protection equipment to where it is needed and participated in the global response to the war in Ukraine by transporting humanitarian aid and water purification and sanitation kits on behalf of Airlink, Flexport and FlobalMedic. It also shipped 1,800 aid kits to families affected by the earthquake that devastated the western region of Morocco in September 2023.

In addition, Air Canada Cargo partnered with Drone Delivery Canada in 2023 to deliver medical goods and food to remote communities in Canada.

Air Canada Cargo also transported Indigenous art from Toronto to Calgary for the Simon House Recovery Centre and last year shipped an endangered 130 kg green sea turtle across the country.

This year, Air Canada Cargo announced the addition of Chicago to its freighter network, with a 767F service that will operate three times per week beginning June 2, connecting the Toronto hub with a self-handled warehouse operation in Chicago.

“As a true global combination carrier, we have been able to provide consistent capacity worldwide through the flexibility our freighter fleet and expansive passenger widebody network provides,” Air Canada EVP of revenue and network planning Mark Galardo said.

Air Canada Cargo is not only investing in improvements for its customers worldwide but is also showing a big heart with all the work it does every day to improve people’s lives.

The 2024 ATW Air Cargo Operator of the Year is Air Canada Cargo.