Airlines are continuing to shift cargo sales and market coverage to general sales and service agents, as labour constraints and cost control remain board-level priorities, according to Kales Group CEO Sebastiaan Scholte.
“The share of total sales by GSSA’s has grown from 24% to 27% in the last 5 years,” Scholte said, adding: “We expect this trend to continue due to an ageing population in many developed countries. It is harder to get (good) people and at board room level of many airlines there is still a focus of reduction, and at least no increase, of manpower.”
Selling “like an airline”
Scholte positioned Kales as “an entrepreneurial organization that acts like an airline with agility & the highest quality,” pointing to its tender participation with major forwarders and its ability to support smaller and medium carriers with outsourced commercial structures.
“We have global partnership deals with some of the biggest forwarders, where we can include our airlines in tenders & incentive deals, since we have the critical mass,” he said. Kales also supports interline and road feeder services and “are able to offer TCM solutions, which are more cost effective than having their own organization for smaller & medium airlines.”
Scholte said data-led decisions are becoming a key differentiator as volatility persists. “Kales as well has a wealth of internal & external data which makes a lot easier to make swift decisions to optimize yield and payload for our airlines,” he said.
He added that Kales has run joint network sessions with carriers: “We have had a couple of events organized where together with an airline we brainstorm on network options.” In some cases, he said, the GSSA is prepared to take commercial risk: “Kales does also not shy away of taking commitment, sometimes on a full flight or rotation basis, so basically putting our money where our mouth is.”
Geopolitics continues to move markets
Scholte argued that disruption remains an immediate demand driver for air cargo. “Almost whatever you read in the international news has an immediate impact on air cargo,” he said, adding: “Sadly to say so: anything bad in the world, like wars, health crisis, natural disasters, except for an economic crisis, has a positive impact on our industry.”
Automation is tightening the booking cycle, but Scholte said the industry is not heading to full self-service. “Digitization is definitely helping us to become more efficient, especially in the booking process,” he said. “People should in theory only get involved to manage exceptions, but the system should automatically do the booking by itself.”
Even so, he stressed that relationships remain central: “Having said this, I am still a firm believer that we cannot rule out the human touch completely. It is a people & sometimes complex business, where thrust is key.”
Pharma and e-commerce lead commodity growth
Kales sees “strong growth in many commodities, mainly in e-commerce and pharma,” with compliance and certification becoming commercial enablers. “Last year Kales was the first GSSA globally to certify for CEIV Pharma, thus helping our airline partners in improving the seamless supply chain of pharmaceutical goods,” Scholte said.
On e-commerce, he was blunt: “e-commerce is here to stay and to grow. This is an irreversible trend that drives air cargo.”
Scholte said compliance is embedded through training and standardisation. “We have various trainings conducted during the year on all levels of our organization to ensure that our people are dealing with compliance in the best way for all our airline partners,” he said, adding: “At Kales we have a perfect balance between reliability and flexibility. We believe in true partnerships where honesty and transparency are key.”
2026: expansion, consolidation, and AI
Looking ahead, Scholte said forecasting is increasingly difficult—“Tomorrow might be different than today, given all the rapid geopolitical developments”—but he still expects Asia to drive growth “together with the e-commerce growth.”
Kales’ focus is footprint growth and readiness for a more concentrated GSSA sector. “We want to expand our global footprint,” he said, noting recent additions: “offices in Turkey, Kazakhstan and Nepal.”
He also expects structural change: “I foresee more consolidation in the GSSA market globally… outsourcing the sales to GSSA’s is a general trend that is going to continue.” And on technology: “Digitisation is definitely a trend that will continue as well, especially with the latest developments in AI.”.
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Author: Anastasiya Simsek
