CargoAi has expanded its collaboration with CMA CGM AIR CARGO to include digital allotment management, moving one of the air freight market's most manual commercial processes onto the platform's digital rails.

The extension signals that allotment agreements — the block-space commitments forwarders traditionally negotiate and administer by email and spreadsheet with airline sales teams — will now be handled through CargoAi's digital infrastructure for the CMA CGM Group's freighter and belly-hold operator.

What does the expanded deal cover?

The partnership now spans digital allotment management alongside the booking relationship the two companies already maintained. In practice, that means the lifecycle of an allotment — allocation, tracking and utilisation visibility — sits inside CargoAi's workflow rather than in bilateral correspondence between the carrier's sales organisation and forwarder procurement teams.

CargoAi positions itself as a booking and rate-management platform for the air cargo sector, connecting forwarders and shippers with carrier capacity digitally. CMA CGM AIR CARGO, the aviation arm of French shipping group CMA CGM, operates a fleet that has become a significant factor on Europe–Asia and transatlantic air freight lanes since the carrier scaled up its cargo ambitions.

Why does allotment digitisation matter commercially?

Allotments sit at the heart of how forwarders secure guaranteed capacity on high-demand lanes, particularly around peak season when spot capacity tightens. The friction is well known in the industry: allotment terms are agreed offline, utilisation is tracked inconsistently, and unused block space frequently goes unreported until it is too late for the airline to resell it.

Digitising that process carries direct commercial consequences for both sides:

• For CMA CGM AIR CARGO, digital allotment management promises better visibility of how committed capacity is actually used, improving load factors and reducing spoilage on allocated space.
• For forwarders, it means real-time visibility of allotment entitlements within the booking flow, cutting the risk of paying for unused commitments or losing allocations they believed were secured.
• For the market overall, it advances the sector-wide push — mirrored by competitors such as WebCargo and cargo.one — to move air freight procurement away from email toward platform-based transactions.

The deal also deepens the strategic alignment between CargoAi and one of the newest full-freighter operators in the market. For CMA CGM AIR CARGO, tighter platform integration widens its digital distribution reach among forwarders who increasingly default to booking tools rather than carrier desks.

Where does this fit in the digitalisation race?

Air cargo's digital booking penetration has climbed steadily since the pandemic-era capacity crunch forced forwarders and carriers alike to adopt faster procurement channels. Allotment management has remained one of the last stubbornly analogue corners of the chain, because it involves negotiated, relationship-based commitments rather than transactional spot purchases.

That is precisely why carriers are now pushing it onto platforms: an allotment that lives in a system can be measured, released, and re-marketed in real time. A carrier with a digital allotment book can behave more like a revenue manager, adjusting committed space against spot demand as booking curves develop.

For CargoAi, adding allotment capability to an existing airline relationship strengthens its pitch against larger rivals in the air cargo booking platform race, where depth of carrier integration increasingly determines which tool forwarders keep open on their screens.

What comes next?

Neither party has disclosed further terms or a rollout timetable in the announcement. The direction of travel, however, is clear: as CMA CGM AIR CARGO continues to build out its air cargo network, its commercial processes — from spot booking to allotment administration — are consolidating on digital platforms, a pattern the wider industry is set to follow.