Europa Air & Sea Improves Efficiency, Tracks Accurately with Windward

Europa Air & Sea is part of Europa Worldwide Group is one of the largest privately-owned transport and logistics companies in the U.K., offering road, air, and sea logistics solutions. In addition to 19 offices throughout the UK and Ireland, Europa  Air & Sea has a strong and growing global presence. Its dedicated Air & Sea Division, Europa Air & Sea, works with a well-established and trusted network of partners around the world and has local offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Dubai. They currently move 20,000+ TEUs worldwide each year and have most recently opened offices in Rotterdam and India as part of their expansion plans.

Europa Air & Sea used a popular transportation management system (TMS), which automatically pushed carrier data into the system, but they found it was creating a bigger challenge than looking for the updates manually, as the data was often inaccurate and did not cover some crucial carriers. This forced Europa Air & Sea to invest more should be required to maintain their customer service level at the highest standard. Identifying the lack of efficiency in this process, the team looked for a visibility solution. Unfortunately, the API data provider they used introduced yet more challenges with:

• An inefficient implementation process
• Data that was still not accurate enough
• The product had not reached the required level of maturity

Europa Air & Sea went on a renewed search for the right solution that would allow them to “just trust the data,” as Europa Air & Sea’s Freight Director, Angus Hind, put it. Their main goal was to streamline operations and create one source of truth for all maritime shipment management, to boost efficiency and improve the customer experience.

While trying out Windward Ocean Freight Visibility, the Head of Engineering and the Director of Air & Sea immediately grasped the impact that it would have on their operations. Windward offered a completely different approach and value:

• A quick and painless implementation of GraphQL APIs, which included enhanced service and support
• Next-level insight accuracy, unattained by any other solutions they had previously used or tried
• The widest carrier coverage, which further reinforces the reliability of Windward Ocean Freight Visibility as a single source of truth for all containers
• The confidence that they were in good hands with a proven company, mature technology, and highly knowledgeable professionals

Despite the initial skepticism that originated from the company’s bad experiences, the operations teams were very quick to see that Windward Ocean Freight Visibility could be trusted as a single source of truth. It was fully adopted by the department, eliminating their need to validate data accuracy via multiple websites.

Windward provided accurate ETA predictions earlier than ever before, allowing operators to lock in correct dates in their customer files seven days before arrival, without worry.. This allowed personnel to focus more of their time on the post-arrival processes, such as preparing for clearance, release, billing, and haulage booking – all crucial steps in avoiding additional charges and avoidable penalties.

Operational process improvements:

• Saved 12.5 monthly hours per operator on time spent updating customer files, due to continuous changes in ETAs, from 3-4 touch points per file to just one
• Increased customer visibility in updates provided by Europa Air & Sea – customers no longer feel the need to track their shipments on their own in parallel
• Fewer customer queries and service request tickets due to discrepant transshipment, location, or arrival information
• 90% reduction in containers incurring demurrage fees due to inaccurate arrival times

Europa Air & Sea plans to use data generated by Windward Ocean Freight Visibility to benchmark the performance of carriers they work with, and to provide their customers with these insights.

Europa Air & Sea is currently in the early stage of implementing a customer-facing portal, which will allow its customers to access information about their containers and the status of their shipments. Windward Ocean Freight Visibility will serve as the foundation of that portal.