Last week in Orlando, Florida, CNS held their annual partnership conference. I was in attendance along with Johannes Riege, our founder. This week he's back in Munich with the rest of the team attending the transport logistic 2017 conference and our new booth is on display. Follow @riegesoftware on Instagram for pictures from the booth and the event.

The CNS Partnership Conference is a unique event, drawing global airlines and their top forwarding customers to sit down and discuss service and execute contracts for global space commitments from the United States. If the JOC's annual TPM (Trans-Pacific Maritime) Conference were a little closer to the annual May 1 signing date for eastbound contracts, this would be a great parallel. However, one of the major differences in modalities is that air cargo shippers do not execute contracts the way ocean Beneficial Cargo Owners, or BCOs, do in the maritime environment.

At CNS, we have a chance to meet at network with clients, partners and the airlines with whom we work. Riege has deep integrations and partnerships with many of the major names in technology that provide data transmission or information services for forwarders. It's part of our philosophy of "People, Partners, Commerce." Our partners give Riege customers the chance to do more natively within Scope, our TMS that powers forwarder offices around the world. The airlines in attendance are many of the world's leading participants and drivers of eAWB wherever possible.

eAWB is a challenging environment, and one where Riege has spent considerable time and effort. Despite the "global" requirements of eAWB, each airline implements the solution slightly differently from their competitors. This means that Riege, working with many of our technology partners, has developed custom solutions to ensure that our users can put an airwaybill into Scope once and we do the heavy lifting of ensuring the transmitted data is accepted by the named airline who is moving the cargo.

With the CNS Partnership Conference in the books, here in North America we're drawing our attention next to AirCargo 2017, an event that draws airlines, forwarders, truckers, airports and other service providers throughout the air cargo supply chain. We are the conference's website sponsor, and companies who schedule a demo with us before the conference will have a chance to be entered in a drawing for a Visa gift card. 

AirCargo is jointly presented by four Associations, including the Airforwarders Association, of which Riege are Platinum members. We are committed to working with air forwarders and through our participation in the CNS eAWB tour last year (there's another one coming in 2017 - stay tuned) and our membership in the AfA, air forwarders can do so much more with Scope than their existing TMS.

Riege will be well represented at AirCargo with a booth and no less than four of our team members in attendance. For more information and to register, be sure to check out the AirCargo Conference website and we'll see you back in Orlando in just a few weeks.