BIFA Awards
Joshua Harbottle, this year’s Young Freight Forwarder of the Year , has always had a passion for aviation. It has led him to a career in logistics, with a stint of overseas work already under his belt Looking forward to a life in logistics Virgin Atlantic Cargo is proud to Young Freight Forwarder Award
sponsor BIFA’s Young Freight Forwarder Award
J osh
of AI in logistics? “Since my promotion to customs manager on 1 January, we’ve secured new contracts that are driving signi fi cant growth. To support this, we’re reviewing our systems and exploring the bene fi ts of AI-enabled solutions,” he said. AI advantage “For instance, doing a customs entry manually could take fi ve or 10 minutes, but with AI it could take 30 seconds. With higher demand we need to be more ef fi cient,” he added. Josh acknowledges concerns over how the human workforce could be affected – but ultimately, he said, “it’s a balancing act: you need human contact in freight forwarding, but AI could free people up [from repetitive work] to do other tasks. It’ll play a major part in the next few years”. to recognise and encourage the next generation of industry leaders. As well as rewarding the progress of the best young people, this award helps to highlight the vital role freight forwarders play in the growth and development of the industry. VAC recognises the importance of developing and retaining talented young people and is confident this award will help to attract more recruits that want to build a future career in a sector that is so important to the economy and international trade.
Harbottle was originally set on being a pilot, but the signi fi cant fi nancial commitment dissuaded him. “I wanted to stay in aviation though, so I went to university to study Air Transport and Logistics Management. I’m still passionate about aviation – I go on plane spotting trips and I keep up with the trends – but logistics is my life now.” Many young people enter the freight world via an apprenticeship, but Josh’s quali fi cation enabled him to step into a graduate role at cargo-partner (part of the Nippon Express Group). “It’s a very niche course; only a handful of universities in the UK offer it,” he continued, observing a lack of interest in freight forwarding and logistics among the general public. Fourth emergency service Josh is involved in BIFA’s Young Forwarder Network to try to raise awareness of the sector and its viability as a career path. After all, he said: “Logistics is like the fourth emergency service.” Josh is also active in BIFA’s air freight policy group. “We discuss issues like ground handling delays and how we can share data and better plan resources to streamline things, especially at Heathrow Airport, which gets very congested at certain times of the day. We’re also looking at sustainable fuels at Heathrow, with all stakeholders working together. “Some people have been doing things the same way for many years, and coming from a different stage in my career, I sometimes see things from another perspective.” Speaking of which, what are Josh’s thoughts on the impact
When cargo-partner and Nippon Express merged in the US, Josh spent two months in Chicago helping to integrate operations
Transatlantic transfer When cargo-partner and Nippon Express merged in the US, Josh helped integrate operations across the Atlantic. “They needed additional staff in Chicago, especially an air freight person, and I had spent nine months in air freight by then so I was asked to go,” he explained. “The two-month assignment required me to adapt to new cultures and different ways of working in a short timeframe.
“I implemented a new set of procedures to streamline the handling of shipments, in addition to addressing the communication problems between speci fi c of fi ces. A backlog in imports, which had been causing additional costs, was resolved within a week and operations were fl owing smoothly a week later.” At the time of writing, Josh was supporting discussions around aligning customs systems and ways of working across teams, including collaboration with the Ireland of fi ce.
22 | March 2026
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