mercator, a leader in aviation IT solutions, and United Airlines have joined forces to migrate the airline’s cargo logistics and revenue accounting systems to mercator’s SkyChain and RAPID Cargo solutions.

The decision has created one of the largest cargo IT solutions in the airline industry.

The migration has helped United Airlines move away from around 20 legacy systems, saving millions of dollars in operational costs.

United Airlines expects to have over two million bookings and 1.5 million air waybills every year on its more than 6,000 daily flights with over 700 aircraft that fly to ten major hubs and over 400 airports worldwide.

“With the end customer in mind, streamlining processes and enabling significant cost savings are critical when shaping future air cargo technology.

“It means much more than simply moving goods from origin to destination.

“While the global industry grows, and the world becomes better connected, we strive to put our aviation expertise to our customer’s service,” said Mukund Srinivasan, vice president mercator.

For the past ten years, global air cargo traffic has grown 3.7 per cent per year.

Long-term projected economic and international trade growth, the continuing globalisation of industry, increasing adoption of inventory reduction strategies, and on-going renewal of the world freighter fleet are set to steer the world air cargo market to grow approximately 5.2 per cent per year.

North American air traffic is projected to average 2.3 per cent growth over the next ten years and to sustain that rate over the full 20-year forecast period.