British Airways' parent company, IAG is implementing some cutting edge automation solutions in response to the rapid pan-industry digitalisation of the air freight sector. Announced on Thursday, IAG Cargo will start using autonomous drones in a move towards full automation of inventory counts in its air cargo facilities, following a successful trial. With a vision to fully automate inventory counts at its air cargo facilities, IAG Cargo has been working closely with FlytBase on aerial inventory scans at its Madrid facility. Inventory counting, while critical to freight and logistics operations, is a massive train on man hours, consuming thousands of hours each year across IAG Cargo's hubs in the UK, Spain, and Ireland. On top of this, rapid global growth in ecommerce and increasing customer expectations of immediacy when it comes to delivery mean that air freight operators are having to increase the frequency of counts.

Fascinating footage has been released of a robot's-eye-view of a driverless vehicle trial at Heathrow Airport, side-by-side with how a human driver would see the routes it took. The clip comes from a'cargopod' vehicle that spent three and a half weeks running autonomously along a cargo route around the airside perimeter. The trial collected over 200km of data for Heathrow, cargo operator IAG Cargo and the software firm providing the self-driving tech, Oxford-based Oxbotica. Fascinating footage has been released of a robot's-eye-view of a driverless vehicle trial at Heathrow Airport, side-by-side with how a human driver would see the routes it took The clip comes from a'cargopod' vehicle, pictured, that spent three and a half weeks running autonomously along a cargo route around the airside perimeter The trial was designed to further understanding about how autonomous vehicles could work in an airside environment so opportunities for their use can be maximised. Lynne Embleton, CEO at IAG Cargo, said: 'Technology is evolving at an incredible pace.