Aviation Connect 2026: Air Cargo Philosophy

Aviation Connect returned to the Grand Hyatt in Athens, Greece, this year – even broader than before, with the addition of two more streams, bringing the total to eight. From 29SEP26-01OCT26, a new dedicated focus on GSSA and Cargo Airport joined the existing ASA, ULD Care, Air Freight Pharma, GSE & RAMP OPS, RFS, and ACHL agendas. The 8 th floor hotel pool area with its spectacular view of the Acropolis, provided the backdrop to the Women in Air Cargo and CEO Award ceremonies on the first evening, and the well-known beach party venue on 30SEP26 rounded off a varied, thought-provoking conference program. Here are CargoForwarder Global’s impressions. Chris Notter provides food for thought. Image: CFG Though coming back to the Grand Hyatt in Athens where the ACHL had been held back in 2022 and 2023 (complete with its annual beach party at Bolivar on the Wednesday night), felt familiar, this year’s Aviation Connect stood out in two very pleasing points – for one, the audience appears to be becoming younger and more diverse, and two: there is a palpable shift (for the most part) from company sales pitch presentations to truly sharing learnings and best-demonstrated practices with the industry. Aviation Connect in numbers The Aviation Connect/Air Cargo Handling Logistics (ACHL) Conference is always a rich melting pot of airline executives, general sales agents, ground handlers, handling agents, airports, digital innovators, industry authorities and experts, RFS providers, ULD managers, Pharma specialists, and many other stakeholders involved in air cargo and aviation. With registered numbers of roughly 600 attendees, this time, attendance was a little lower than usual – a fact that some participants told CFG, appeared to be down to cost-cutting measures which could become even more intense next year. Nevertheless, attendance in the conference hall and stream rooms was good. 40 exhibitors welcomed people to their booths, and a number of companies had opted for private meeting rooms for their one-to-one customer discussions. Eva International Media once again saw to it that no attendee went hungry, and were praised for their detailed planning and conference delivery – including last-minute open-air heating adaptations when the Greek weather gods decided to drop the usual temperature a few degrees lower than normal for this time of year. Rooftop Awards The Women in Air Cargo Awards were held in the open air, pool-side area on the hotel’s 8 th floor on 29SEP26, once again celebrating the inspiring women within our industry, nominated by their companies and peers. The winners included: Phaedra den Hertog, Chief Experience Officer (CXO), Awery Aviation Software – IT Category; Nina Strippel, Managing Director, Wallenborn – Road Feeder Services Category; Grace Kelly, Director Commercial Strategy, ACL Airshop – Supply Chain Partnership Category; Stephanie Rajzbaum, Managing Director of TCR North America – GSE Category; Ghariba Suleiman, Director, Cargo & Logistics Partnerships, King Salman International Airport – Airports Category; Lubna Allaham, Senior Manager Cargo Customer Experience, Cargo Commercial, Etihad – Airline Category; Kritika Seth, Executive Director, Allied Aviation – GSSA Category; Celine Hourcade, Vice President, Global Head of ESG / Sustainability, SATS – Category Cargo Handling Agent. A new award was also launched to honor outstanding CEOs in 6 categories. All winners were all handed their awards by Chris Notter on behalf of Eva International Media, and TIACA’s Roos Bakker as sponsor. Aviation Connect in topics and takeaways While the usual topic areas of digitalization, automation/robotics, AI, talent attraction and retention, peppered the agenda, the presentations and panels took a deep-dive into the topics, offering learnings and discussion points. Danita Waterfall-Brizzi, moderating the new Cargo Airport track, pointed out that a cargo airport is no longer just a place, but a logistics platform within the whole supply chain and that investments in airport development must be able to answer to the customers’ shipping needs. David Kerr’s GSSA track explored the spectrum of GSA scenarios and the role of tech in ensuring efficient operations (but also dealing with the topic of cybersecurity), Mohamed Hanno’s Aviation Ground Services stream talked about People, Predictability and Partnerships, the importance of trust in those partnerships, and ensuring that people and not AI are in the driving seat. Stavros Evangelakakis introduced Cool Corridor as a new buzzword and posed the question of sustainable reserve logistics. David Smorenburg. Representing the RFS stream, said the objective of the event was to ask difficult questions, set objectives and build connections, and Henrik Ambak offered a range of topics for the ACHL stream, including robotics, aviation, sustainability, drones, RFS and airport challenges, and teasing “The Big Reveal” (see separate article in this week’s CFG) as an improvement