Cargo Service Tracker (CST)


How does a cargo agent decide which airline to choose for a particular shipment? How is your airline’s service perceived compared to competitors’?

The global air cargo customer satisfaction competitive benchmark

  • The CST is an annual syndicated telephone survey of freight forwarders (with more than 2,000 phone interviews in 2008) which collects and analyses customer feedback on reasons for airline choice and service perceptions and drivers.
  • The results provided include comparisons with major competing carriers (individually named and identified, whether participating to the survey or not) and over time.

Worldwide coverage

20 countries/locations were surveyed in the 2008 edition of the CST:

  • Brazil and the US (split among the top 8 regions: ATL, DFW/IAH, LAX, MIA, NYC, ORD and SFO) in the Americas
  • France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Scandinavia and the UK in Europe
  • Australia, China, Hong-Kong, India, Japan, Korea and Thailand in Asia
  • South Africa and the UAE in Africa/Middle East

Other countries/locations are available upon request.

More than 2,000 interviews every year

  • Participating airlines meet early in the year to discuss the questionnaire: the 2009 user meeting is scheduled the first week of March in Bangkok at the IATA World Cargo Symposium
  • Fieldwork takes place in late spring. Between 10 and 35% of freight forwarders are interviewed by phone in each country/location.
  • Reports are delivered in the fall.

Benefits

  • The CST provides high quality benchmarking data at an affordable price thanks to syndication. Participants get to know where their strengths and weaknesses are to focus their efforts on the improvements most meaningful to their customers. Competitors are named and identified individually throughout the report. Their list includes all major players in the given country/location, whether participating or not to the survey.
  • Since the CST comes out every year in a comparable format, participants can track trends and analyse the effectiveness of their own action plan as well as their competitors’.

Who is the CST for?

  • The CST is well suited for any cargo carrier eager to understand how to grow its business most efficiently through better knowledge of its customers… and competitors!
  • This includes smaller players: thanks to CargoIS data, IATA can target effectively respondents who have used any given carrier, no matter how marginal, and get a meaningful number of ratings for it.

The IATA Advantage

  • As the organization officially representing some 230 of the world's airlines, IATA is at the forefront of all commercial aviation activities, including airline satisfaction surveys. It is unchallenged in terms of depth of industry expertise worldwide.
  • Because of its status, IATA acts as an independent consultant and provides unbiased analysis, plans and recommendations in a unique range of dedicated cargo products: CargoIS, CST and cargo consulting.
  • Thanks to CargoIS data, IATA can target respondents to ensure a meaningful number of ratings for subscribers, as well as weigh results by tons shipped to give a more accurate picture of the market.

For more information, please contact us at: businessinsight@iata.org