E-commerce fragments air cargo demand and rewrites the GSSA playbook

Cross-border e-commerce has dismantled the consolidated freight model that general sales and service agents (GSSAs) built their businesses on, replacing a small number of large-volume accounts with thousands of smaller shippers, marketplaces and intermediaries. Volume is still growing, but it now arrives as a continuous, fragmented stream rather than predictable consolidation cycles — and the agents that connect shippers with airline capacity are being forced to redesign how they operate.

The shift is most acute across China and Southeast Asia, where export volumes are high, fast-moving and structurally volatile. For GSSAs, the commercial consequence is direct: value no longer sits in account size but in orchestration — converting dispersed demand signals into coherent airline utilisation.

What does the fragmentation mean for GSSAs?

The traditional comfort of concentration is gone. A GSSA that once relied on a handful of big forwarder customers now has to aggregate demand from a much broader and less predictable base, then channel it efficiently into partner airlines' networks. That raises transaction intensity while reducing forecast reliability, squeezing the operational margins of error that consolidation once allowed.

Carlo de Haas, President and CEO at FlyUs, laid out the new reality in direct terms. "For GSSAs, the opportunity lies in acting as the bridge between that distributed demand and airline capacity. Rather than relying on a small number of large-volume customers, we are now working with a much broader mix of shippers, platforms, and intermediaries," he said. "We combine strong local market knowledge with the ability to aggregate this demand effectively."

The geographic focus is deliberate. In key export markets across China and Southeast Asia, de Haas said, the work means building close relationships with forwarders and e-commerce players, understanding how demand is evolving locally, and ensuring volume flows efficiently into airline partners' networks. Local presence, in other words, has become a competitive asset rather than an overhead.

How has e-commerce changed shipment profiles?

The operational environment has been reshaped at the consignment level. Instead of predictable, consolidated volumes, GSSAs now handle smaller, more frequent and highly time-sensitive shipments that can vary significantly by lane and market. Operational discipline — fixed processes built around stable cycles — is being replaced by what de Haas calls operational elasticity.

"e-commerce has fundamentally changed shipment profiles. We are no longer dealing with predictable, consolidated volumes, but with smaller, more frequent consignments that can vary significantly by lane and market," de Haas stated. "Operationally, this requires a much more agile approach."

Teams must now absorb rapid demand swings, reallocate capacity dynamically and keep airlines and forwarders in constant alignment. Execution speed has become a core determinant of competitiveness, and communication carries extra weight when capacity tightens or conditions shift. In markets like China and Southeast Asia, de Haas argues, strong and experienced local teams are critical precisely because export volumes move so quickly.

Can technology carry the load alone?

Digital capability has become essential infrastructure, particularly because e-commerce customers expect end-to-end visibility. FlyUs has invested in systems that integrate with airline platforms and give partners and customers real-time access to bookings, tracking and reporting — tools that compress response times and sharpen situational awareness across volatile demand conditions.

But de Haas is explicit that systems alone cannot resolve operational complexity. Airfreight remains defined by disruption risk, capacity constraints and schedule variability, and technology must sit alongside experienced operational oversight rather than replace it.

"Visibility is a key expectation in e-commerce, and technology plays a central role in delivering that. At the same time, digital tools need to complement, not replace, the service element that GSSAs provide," he outlined. "In a volatile environment, customers still rely on responsive, knowledgeable teams who can step in when challenges arise."

The FlyUs approach pairs technology-driven visibility and efficiency with the relationships that underpin cargo operations — a dual model in which digital tools handle the routine and people manage the exceptions. For carriers, the implication is that their GSSA partners must increasingly function as demand aggregators and local intelligence networks, not just sales channels.

As e-commerce volumes continue to disperse across platforms and smaller shippers, the GSSAs that combine aggregation capability, elastic operations and digitally enabled visibility look set to consolidate their position as the interface between fragmented demand and airline capacity.