Air France Cargo, British Airways World Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo commit to GF-X as their preferred channel for electronic bookings (28/02/2002)

Air France Cargo announced today that it is immediately joining Global Freight Exchange (GF-X) and will make its products available via this internet-based air cargo marketplace as soon as technically feasible. "Air France Cargo has decided to join GF-X to benefit from the most advanced electronic marketplace in the industry. This will enable us to make our differentiated product offering electronically available to the leading international forwarders," says Marc Boudier, Executive Vice President of Air France Cargo.

At the same time, British Airways World Cargo and Lufthansa Cargo, which have both been present on the GF-X system since 2000, explained that they will intensify their efforts together with Air France Cargo to promote the electronic marketplace. Both cargo carriers plan to expand their product offering on GF-X significantly, confirms Dr. Andreas Otto, Member of the Executive Board of Lufthansa Cargo: "In the future we will be working even more closely together with GF-X and our forwarders in order to drive the migration to e-business in the air cargo industry."

Air France Cargo, British Airways World Cargo as well as Lufthansa Cargo will make GF-X their preferred electronic channel for bookings from forwarders and wish to see GF-X turn into a globally accepted standard. With this strategic decision, these three leading cargo carriers will help advance the adoption of electronic bookings for air cargo, thereby achieving significant cost efficiencies for all participants in the air cargo industry. Specifics are currently being discussed between GF-X and the three cargo airlines.

The three cargo carriers encourage other airlines to follow their example, especially in other regions of the world in order to create a truly global marketplace. "Our business is global by nature and, therefore, it makes sense to automate the booking process of the air cargo industry with a common global platform, rather than with regional solutions," says Gareth Kirkwood, Managing Director British Airways World Cargo.

For further press information please contact:
Kate Measures/Laura Barnes bawc@golinharris.com
Tel.: +44 (0) 20 7898 3333
Fax: +44 (0) 20 7898 3334
www.baworldcargo.com