Royal Jordanian builds cargo operations centre

Royal Jordanian Airlines has built a new Dh212-million cargo operations centre at Queen Alia International Airport, according to a company statement.

At the new air freight terminal, cargo shipments are quicker and more efficient in terms of unloading, storage, handling and dispatch to final destination - usually the same day regardless of the point of origin.
Royal Jordanian also bought a wireless data entry and barcoding solution from Symbol Technologies to speed up cargo handling, reduce errors and allows online tracking via Internet, said Mohammad Murtada, assistant vice-president for cargo.

Earlier, air freight operations faced timing difficulties starting from the receipt of a shipment to its dispatch to the final location. Data was manually captured onto checklists from the list of cargo received, possibly leading to a combination of human errors and delays.

The new system allows the airline to provide its clients and agents with instant bookings and online status reports on cargo movements through every point of the freight transport process; handling, storage, ramp loading, delivery, or customs and forwarding of shipments.

"The system is a major step in the total revamp of the processes and techniques utilised by Royal Jordanian Airlines. Cargo is a key part of our business; our new systems give us a competitive edge over other regional airlines," Murtada said.

"In the past, the manual processes were satisfactory, but as the airline has grown it was proving to be a hindrance with the rapidly increasing volume of business that Air Freight Terminal was handling," said Yousef Barghouti, general manager, GCEsoft - General Co for Electronics and Software, is Symbol Technologies' Jordanian business partner.

"This wireless installation is a key building block in the airline's e-cargo project, which enables our customers to trace their shipments worldwide over the Internet via the cargo website," added Jamal Saudi, Royal Jordanian information technology director.