GSSAs set for closer airline integration

GSSAs will evolve to increasingly integrate with airlines while offering a menu of services and target new market entrants, according to speakers at the Aviation Connect event.

Official response and confirmed impact

During a panel discussion at the Athens event, speakers were asked how they felt GSSAs would develop in the future.

Kales Group chief executive Sebastiaan Scholte said that new entrants to the airline industry could become future customers of GSSAs.

He explained that over recent years shippers, shipping companies, e-commerce platforms, freight forwarders and ACMI providers have all emerged as aircraft operators.

“All of them have certain lanes that are not full and they also have directional imbalances, so what I see as a future role for GSSAs is to become a broker of capacity.

Who better can commercialise this space?” he said.

Elsewhere, Scholte said GSSAs would increase their use of AI tools to help improve aircraft utilisation while they would also increasingly sell back-office services to airlines.

The industry will also increasingly act as a “virtual airline”, he said.