WiseTech is giving away air cargo booking and will not say who pays
ATC Aviation is the first general sales agent inside CargoWise AirlineConnect, and WiseTech says connected airlines now cover 75% of the air waybills its customers execute. That number counts reach, not bookings, and the booking layer rides in a Value Pack whose price rises with the transactions flowing through it.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
Booking moves inside the forwarder's system
ATC Aviation Services, part of World Freight Company, has become the first general sales and service agent connected to CargoWise AirlineConnect, letting forwarders search, compare and book its airlines' capacity inside the WiseTech system they already run 1. WiseTech expects more forwarders to book directly in CargoWise as the network grows 1. The launch covers ATC's portfolio in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, with WFC, which markets capacity for more than 300 airlines across 3,500-plus tradelanes, meant to follow across its network 1.
A reach number with no bookings in it
AirlineConnect now gives digital booking access to airlines accounting for 75% of the air waybills WiseTech customers execute, up 15 percentage points in a year, and the company concedes the figure counts connected airlines' share of air waybills, not shipments actually booked through AirlineConnect 1. Access ships inside the CargoWise Value Pack, and WiseTech would not say whether airlines or GSSAs pay connection or transaction fees 1. Holders of WiseTech (ASX: WTC) need that ambiguity resolved rather than papered over: the stock has lost more than 60% in a year and the ACCC executed a search warrant at its offices a week before results 4.
Nothing in the Value Pack is free
WiseTech is giving away the booking counter and charging rent on everything that walks through the door. Chief executive Zubin Appoo told the FY26 results call that Value Packs "price on the value available to customers, the transactions and work flowing through the platform, not the number of people logging in" 2. Bookings made inside CargoWise feed that meter even with no booking fee named. FY26 revenue was $1,395.9m, up 79% from $778.7m, with e2open supplying $541.2m of it, while statutory profit fell 11% to $178.7m on acquisition costs 23. FY27 guidance is $1.48–1.54bn, growth of 6–10% 5.
The neutral camp collects crumbs
Freightos (Nasdaq: CRGO), the listed neutral platform WiseTech is circling, turned a record $422m of second-quarter gross booking value into $7.7m of revenue, up 3%, on 458,000 transactions 6. Its adjusted EBITDA loss was $2.0m, it holds $21.4m of cash, and full-year revenue guidance is $30.4–31m, growth of 3–5% 7.
Freightos's whole guided year equals about eight days of WiseTech revenue
- Revenue
- Estimate
Data
| Revenue | |
|---|---|
| WiseTech FY25 | $778.7 |
| WiseTech FY26 | $1,395.9 |
| Freightos FY26 guide (estimate) | $30.7 ($30.4–31.0) |
The founder campaigning against his own pace
Freightos founder Zvi Schreiber argues neutrality still wins: an airline on Freightos reaches forwarders whatever system they run, and its marketplace connects carriers to forwarders to shippers 1. "When a well-funded incumbent moves into your market, that's the moment to accelerate, not to take a sabbatical from growth" 1. His own company's 3–5% revenue guide is the pace he is arguing against 7. Even Cherry's Logistics, a new Hamburg forwarder that chose CargoWise for its API connections, says it wants to "stay flexible in making our own choices" 1.
Watch for a booked-share number
The tell is disclosure, not announcements. If FY27 reporting converts 75% reach into a booked-share or revenue number, the free layer was a wedge into the booking market; if it never does, free was the whole strategy. On the other side, Freightos counted 75 carriers actively selling in the second quarter 7. Watch whether WFC's 300 airlines arrive on CargoWise faster than carriers and buyers arrive on Freightos.
Deepdive
AI-generated from this story and its cited sources. Not investment advice.
