Frankfurt / Montreal - The first online platform for the global exchange of Unit Load Devices (ULDs) has been newly designed and equipped with additional tools. skypooling’s entirely reworked version 2.0 was introduced at the ULD Care Annual Conference in Montreal, which took place between 17 until 19 September 2019. This enables users of currently more than 50 airlines to quickly share containers and pallets used for airfreight and baggage to solve over- or understock situations. The sharing principle, which is transferred to ULDs, allows better use of available ULD and aircraft capacities, avoid deadhead moves and storage of empty ULDs.

The entirely reworked surface is structured in a more user-friendly way and therefore simplifies the usage. Apart from its new look, skypooling 2.0 mainly impresses with its new features. One of those is an auto-matching function, which automatically matches airlines with similar over- and understock, thus saving time for manual searches. In addition, the communication area in the system has been expanded so that, in addition to inquiries and coordination, bookings can also be made directly on the platform. As part of the comprehensive update, all functions are now also available mobile via smartphone or tablet.

The changes on the system were based on a survey among the users. Therefore it was possible to realize the requests for improvement of almost 50 participating airlines of the platform. Christine Klemmer, General Manager of skypooling, is convinced that the new system will significantly simplify the work of many ULD controllers and that it also holds a positive side-effect: “In the future, there will be many more solutions to find on the platform that will make ULD sharing even more easy and comfortable. skypooling therefore will become an essential work tool for many ULD controllers and will help them to save time, effort and costs. Due to the avoidance of empty runs, the CO2 balance of the airlines will improve as well.”

In concrete terms, even one avoided empty intercontinental flight of a standard AKE container saves an average of 65 kilograms of CO2. The saving for a pallet stack is already around 3000 kilograms.

Martin Kraemer, Head of Marketing & PR for skypooling, also sees a lot of potential: “skypooling’s new design and additional features are just the first step among many more to improve the platform and its services to become the leading place for ULD sharing.”