ATA’s President, Filip Vande Cappelle, was invited to talk about sustainability and digitalization in the animal shipping industry.  Needless to say that focus was put on the importance of using best practices.  Furthermore, Filip informed the audience about ATA’s ground-breaking study on monitoring horse well-being and safety in long distance air travel. The study, operated through the University of Bologna, aims to monitor horse health - including heart rate, respiration, and temperature. 

This was followed by a presentation of ATA’s member Champ Cargosystems, together with their partners Arioneo and Equus Invest & Events, on new technology that is being developed with the aim to improve data capture and development of the solutions in support of the 2-year study, which aims to show what actions can be taken to improve and take the wellbeing and safe transportation of animals.

Data will be collected and transmitted via Arioneo’s data logger recording horse vital signs. This information is communicated to the pilot and groom on their mobile devices with CHAMP’s data communication capabilities that will provide an information flow and data that allows the tracking and monitoring real-time the safety and wellbeing of the animal transported. The application which is currently used for training and monitoring of the wellbeing of the horse in normal on the ground conditions will allow for the crew and groom to take preventive actions making sure that horses are checked at the right time. A full report of each horse will be available after every flight allowing trainers and owners to learn from the experience and prepare better for the next journeys.