[photopress:shanghai_airport.jpg,full,alignright]Expanding the earlier story. Shanghai wants to take over from Tokyo as the center for CPS (Cargo Portal Services) bookings. This is am an important electronic booking and shipment management service for the air cargo industry.
At the moment Tokyo is slightly ahead of the game. Shanghai is close to breaking through the 1,000 confirmed new bookings a week.
Lat year Tokyo moved to beyond 1,000 bookings a week threshold and so far this year has kept ahead of that.
This growth and competion shows the the global appeal of CPS. Interesting the service doesn’t currently use the flag carriers of either countries but that does not stop its very rapid expansion. those countries. It also illustrates the pattern of the rapid adoption of CPS, which is greatest in Asia, followed by North America.
Jim Friedel, president of Northwest Airlines Cargo, speaking on behalf of all the CPS carriers, said, ‘All across Asia, we have been impressed with how our customers have quickly and thoroughly embraced e-booking.’
Christopher Shawdon, Unisys vice president Logistics Solutions, said, ‘CPS continues to grow very rapidly with the number of confirmed bookings up more than 35 per cent in the last four months.’
Shanghai, the most important economic hub on the mainland, wants, among many other things, to be the air transport hub for the Asia and Pacific as well as a key link in the world’s aviation network.
The aim is to get there by 2015 in a plan that has three phases. From 2005 to 2007, the two international airports, Pudong and Hongqiao, will be able to handle about 50 million passengers and 3.1 million tons of cargo each year.
In the 2007 to 2010 period the two airports will expand until they can handle 84 million passengers and 5 million tons of cargo a year.
And by the end of 2015, Shanghai will handle 110 million passengers and 7 million tons of cargo a year.
Working alongside that will be the Unisys-operated CPS, a leading electronic booking and shipment management service for the air cargo industry. This offers a 30-day advance booking on all CPS member carriers.
Source: China Daily