Hong Kong Air Cargo Terminals Limited (Hactl) – the major air cargo terminal operator at the world’s largest air cargo hub – announced today that it successfully migrated the second group of 54 airline customers to its latest generation of Cargo Management System COSAC-Plus on 25 January 2012. The first flight handled was Cargolux CV793 departing at 7:47am to Luxembourg via Baku and Budapest.
The first phase of COSAC-Plus went live on 26th December 2011, handling Delta Air Lines and Japan Airlines. The remainder of Hactl’s airline customers will migrate to COSAC-Plus in further phases throughout early 2012.
Says Hactl Executive Director Tan Chee Hong: “This was the biggest test of COSAC-Plus to date, due to the sheer number of airlines and volumes of air cargo involved in Phase 2. We are pleased that COSAC-Plus has lived up to our expectation so far and are delighted that everything went smoothly and according to the plan – it’s a strong endorsement of all the planning, development, testing, rehearsals and training that has gone into the project since July 2009.“
Adds Peter Lam, Director, Area Operations & Cargo Services of Cargolux: “The benefits of this latest generation of COSAC-Plus to us will be considerable, and we look forward to experiencing its new features and functionality following all the planning and collaboration that has taken place over the past three years. Hactl has handled the whole project, including this final cut-over, with its usual efficiency and professionalism.”
COSAC-Plus represents an investment of HKD240 million (USD31million / EUR22million / GBP19million) – the single largest investment by Hactl since the building of its SuperTerminal 1 in 1998. COSAC-Plus marks the culmination of three years’ intensive development and testing by a team of up to 160 professionals from IT, operations and technology partners.
COSAC-Plus has also involved the largest single training exercise ever conducted by Hactl, comprising over 350 classes held from August to December 2011, training over 3,500 users. In addition, a self-directed Computer Based Training System (CBT) was introduced in September 2011 to help users familiarise themselves with COSAC-Plus. There is also 24 hour on-site support for up to seven days after each go-live phase.
COSAC-Plus embodies hundreds of improvements in the areas of user experience, functions, features and architecture design. It is multilingual and comes with a full web interface, online help and personalisation capability. It handles images for the first time, and has comprehensive cargo tracking features. Its modular and open architectural design facilitates e-Freight, ease of customisation, development and integration with airlines’ own systems.
COSAC-Plus has been developed for Hactl by HACTL Solutions Ltd – an independent company established in 2009 to provide full air cargo management solutions for all sectors of the industry. HACTL Solutions is owned by the same four shareholders as Hactl itself.
