British Airways World Cargo Chooses Transcenda as Its Service Partner (05/03/2001)

British Airways World Cargo has awarded a three-year contract to Transcenda for the provision of a global messaging gateway for their worldwide trading partners. Transcenda is an ARINC-led alliance made up of three of the most advanced Cargo Community Systems - Cargo Community Network PTE LTD, Cargonaut B.V., and Icarus e-Com. Transcenda was formed to provide global e-commerce and single-point access to airlines and forwarders alike for deployment of e-commerce and messaging services.

British Airways World Cargo selected Transcenda for its global reach and presence and the quality of service the alliance can bring to them and its worldwide community of customers. Transcenda will provide conversion and translation facilities for the exchange of cargo messages of any protocol and any format with trading partners worldwide. British Airways World Cargo will benefit from the vast experience that the alliance members have within the transport sector to provide open access through the Internet, the World Wide Web, and mobile devices to a range of airline services.

According to Paul Burton, GM Business Development, "Core to the principles of British Airways World Cargo's business is the effective and efficient exploitation of IT as an enabler to progressive change and performance improvement. A key to this is to ensure that the business optimises its investment in IT systems and services. This exciting partnership with Transcenda meets this need and provides new opportunities to support the delivery of service excellence to our customers."

"The Transcenda service allows British Airways World Cargo to achieve a streamlining of connections to trading partners worldwide. The Global coverage of Transcenda provides us with a very reliable level of service and performance" added Jacek Lechocki, E-Business Manager Services, British Airways World Cargo.

British Airways World Cargo is the fifth largest international cargo airline in the world and transports nearly 800,000 metric tons of freight, mail, and courier traffic each year to more than 160 destinations in over 80 countries. Their combination of aircraft belly hold capacity on their passenger aircraft and cargo-only freighters enables them to handle a huge range of diverse products, such as fresh fruits, vegetables, and flowers; pharmaceuticals; hi-tech products; car parts; textiles; and even family pets relocating with their owners. They are the first choice cargo airline for customers transporting goods anywhere in the world.

Transcenda is a technology solutions alliance positioned to take advantage of new message types and access methods for facilitating Cargo 2000 compliance to both airlines and forwarders to enable the evolution of time-definite services within the cargo industry. This alliance enables customers to have the same secured messaging infrastructure, which is used by over 1500 companies worldwide through the network of the alliance members.

ARINC Incorporated, headquartered in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S.A., develops and operates communications and information processing systems for the aviation and transportation industries and provides systems engineering and integration solutions to the government and the aviation industry. Cargo Community Network (CCN) is jointly owned by Singapore Airlines, Ltd., TDB Holdings, and SAAA Cargo Services Pte. Ltd. and enables cargo-related information exchange within the air cargo community of Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Cargonaut B.V. supports 150 freight forwarders, cargo community systems, airlines, handling agents, customs, integrators, shippers, and truckers through its core systems located at Schipol Airport, The Netherlands. Icarus e-Com , headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, provides a range of e-commerce supply chain solutions to the freight, transport, and logistics industries.