Taking ownership of a live aviation platform

Unilode runs the world’s largest outsourced fleet of air-cargo Unit Load Devices — the containers and pallets that move freight in an aircraft’s belly. Toobler is the engineering partner that took ownership of its customer-facing digital ecosystem — the customer and admin portals, and E-ULD, the mobile app ground teams use to track and hand over ULDs — through a live vendor transition, without disrupting an operation that airlines depend on every day.

Customer and context

Unilode (Unilode Aviation Solutions) is the global leader in outsourced ULD management. It operates the world’s largest outsourced ULD fleet and the largest global network for maintaining and repairing containers, pallets and inflight galley equipment — 200,000+ ULDs under management, 450,000+ ULDs and galley carts serviced a year, across 550+ airports, on more than 25 years in the industry.

A ULD never stays in one place. It moves between airports, cargo sheds, forwarders and repair workshops, changing hands between airlines, ground handlers and truckers along the way. Tracking where each one is, who has it and whether it is fit to fly is central to the business, and for years much of that record was kept on paper. Unilode began fitting its containers with Bluetooth tracking tags to change that.

In 2023 Unilode also set out to own its technology. It was moving from externally built MVP applications toward a sustainable, internally owned digital ecosystem, and standing up its own IT organization around its critical data and customer-facing platforms. Toobler joined that journey as a technology partner. Starting with performance optimization of the mobile app, its involvement gradually expanded to end-to-end mobile app frontend development, followed by frontend and backend development for the web portals.

The challenge

Toobler was taking over live applications that already ran business-critical processes. The knowledge of how they worked — the systems, the business rules, the delivery practices, the technical decisions — sat with an outgoing external vendor, while Unilode was still building the internal team meant to own them. Alongside new features, Toobler had to absorb a complex domain, keep the platform running for the customers and internal teams who rely on it, and set up a delivery process Unilode could sustain.

That meant learning two things at once: the business (ULDs, fleet operations, contracts, customers, report generation) and the existing application landscape (architecture, code, delivery standards), while collaborating with both the departing vendor and Unilode’s emerging IT organization.

The mobile app had its own constraints, set by where and how ground teams work:

• No signal where the work happens. Airport aprons, cargo sheds and baggage tunnels are full of concrete and steel. An app that needs the cloud for every scan or signature leaves a ground crew unable to finish the job.
• Replacing a paper form. The LUC — the standard IATA receipt for handing over custody of a ULD — has many fields, condition codes and two signatures from two different companies. It had to become something a handler could complete quickly on a phone.
• Every kind of device. Airline staff carry company iPhones; ground handlers in cold climates use rugged Android scanners with hardware laser triggers. One app had to serve both.
• Reading worn markings in real time. Container numbers are painted on aluminum walls, often scratched and faded, and the camera has to read them on modest phones without lag.
• Improving recognition without waiting for app stores. Every better recognition model would otherwise mean another app release and days of store review — in every store.

The solution

Toobler works as an embedded engineering partner across Unilode’s ecosystem, and its scope has widened over time. Today the work covers one ULD data platform with two parts: portals that give customers and Unilode’s teams visibility, and a field app that captures what happens to each container on the ground.

The Customer Portal (React). The main touchpoint between Unilode and its customers: business reports and operational insights, fleet information, inventory visibility, contracts and services — giving airlines and freight customers visibility and control over their ULD operations, with complex operational data presented in a form they can act on.

The Admin Portal (React). The management side: user administration, business configuration, contract and currency management, data management and application oversight.

A backend API (C# / .NET). As the partnership matured, Toobler expanded from frontend development into backend engineering, covering identity and user management, business management, customer configuration, and the integration of Unilode’s Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to provide access to valuable business insights. This expansion followed a structured architecture and source-code familiarization phase, ensuring a smooth transition and effective ownership of the expanded scope.

E-ULD Mobile: the platform in the field

E-ULD is a React Native app for the people who handle ULDs every day: ground crews, cargo handlers, airline station managers and repair technicians. It runs on iPhones, Android phones and rugged Zebra and Honeywell scanners, and replaces clipboards, carbon-copy slips and separate scanning devices with one tool. It’s shipped to the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and all the Chinese app stores, including Huawei AppGallery and the Tencent App Store.

Signing in for a shift. Staff sign in with their own credentials or through their company’s identity provider via Auth0, so airline staff use the login, multi-factor authentication and password rules they already have. Credentials can be remembered securely on the device for quick re-entry, passwords can be reset from the app, and where corporate or regional networks block the standard flow, an in-app web sign-in keeps login working. On sign-in, the app loads the user’s permissions — such as editing transfers, pairing tags or signing off repairs — and sets their home station from the phone’s location. Someone already signed in can carry on with their shift when the connection drops.

Finding containers. Staff can look up any ULD or tag by typing its number, scanning its barcode or picking up its Bluetooth signal, and see its last known location with station and time, the tag’s battery and age, whether the unit is serviceable, and a timeline of where it has been seen. In a crowded cargo yard, area discovery lists every tag in range with its signal strength and approximate distance. Scanning carries on in the background with the phone in a pocket, and the sightings flow to Unilode’s cloud platform so station managers can see stock on a map.

Pairing tags to containers. Technicians fitting a new tag scan the container’s serial number and the tag’s code; the app connects to the tag, checks its battery and signal, confirms it can be paired, records a photo of the installed tag as evidence, and links the two in one step. A damaged tag can be unpaired and replaced the same way.

Counting and staging. When a team builds an inventory list or checks containers staged for a flight, it can add units five ways: Bluetooth detection, barcode or QR, reading the painted number with the camera, the hardware laser on a rugged scanner, or voice — saying the code aloud when gloves make typing impractical. A finished list can be saved, filtered, exported or turned straight into a transfer.

Handing over custody. The LUC transfer is fully digital. A handler starts an outbound handover or accepts an inbound one, adds units by Bluetooth, barcode, camera OCR or laser scan, and the app flags any container that belongs to another airline so the right rules apply. Both parties sign on the screen, the app generates the PDF receipt on the device, emails it to both agents and their supervisors, and stores it in the cloud. A recurring transfer can be copied in one tap, and a mistaken one reversed.

Keeping stock and condition honest. Station supervisors get a live stock count of pallets and containers, with discrepancies flagged — units expected but missing, or units that arrived unannounced. Marking a unit serviceable or unserviceable checks the phone’s location first, so status can only be changed by someone physically at the station.

Running the repair cycle. Damage is reported with photos in the app. When a truck collects damaged units, the driver and ground agent create a pickup note; technicians log repairs and clear units as fit to fly; and when units come back, a signed delivery note returns them to active stock.

Setting up the fixed readers. Unilode also installs gateway readers on warehouse doors and ramp light poles that detect tags as dollies pass. The app configures them — identifying the reader, setting its network, antenna range and station — and tests that each one is online and reporting.

How the portal and the app work together

The two halves serve different people and different moments. E-ULD is where events happen: a container is sighted, paired, counted, handed over, damaged, repaired or returned, and the app records it at the point it happens, with location and time, and syncs it to Unilode’s cloud platform. The Customer Portal is where that operational picture is put in front of airlines and freight customers as fleet information, inventory visibility, reports and contracts, drawing on Unilode’s enterprise data.

A key workflow: handing a container over

1. A ground handler opens a new outbound transfer at the aircraft stand; the app already knows their station.
2. They add the containers by sweeping for Bluetooth tags, scanning barcodes or pointing the camera at the painted numbers — no internet needed.
3. The app flags one unit as belonging to another airline, so it is handled under the right rules.
4. The handler and the receiving agent each sign on the phone’s screen.
5. The app produces the PDF receipt on the spot, emails it to both parties and their supervisors, and uploads it as soon as there is a connection — replacing a carbon copy that could be lost, smudged or disputed later.

Engineering worth naming

• Taking over a live platform. Picking up a business-critical system from an outgoing vendor, while the business kept running, meant learning the existing code, business rules and delivery practices before changing them, and keeping releases steady throughout.
• Offline-first by design. Every scan, sighting, pairing and transfer draft is saved first to an encrypted database on the device, so work carries on without signal; a background sync uploads the queue in small batches once a connection returns.
• Recognition on the device. Reading container numbers uses a two-stage, on-device pipeline: a lightweight model finds the text on the container wall, then a recognition model tuned separately for iOS and Android reads it — in under 200 milliseconds, with no network. It checks results against IATA ULD numbering rules, so logos and warning stickers are ignored.
• Models that update without a release. The app checks for new recognition models, downloads and verifies them, and switches over on the fly — so better recognition reaches staff without waiting for app-store reviews.
• One codebase, every input. A single input layer handles touchscreen and camera on phones, native listeners for the laser triggers on rugged scanners, and voice for gloved hands.
• Global, including China. Shipping one app to Apple, Google and the Chinese stores, including Huawei and Tencent, means meeting each store’s permission and privacy requirements without forking the product.
• A widening role. Toobler’s work grew from mobile app support into end-to-end mobile and web portal engineering and, increasingly, product ownership.

Results

Through the ongoing partnership, Unilode’s platform has moved from its initial MVP foundation into a continuously improving enterprise product:

• Greater customer transparency — a growing portfolio of reports and insights giving customers clearer visibility into their fleet, inventory, contracts and operational activity.
• Expanded digital capabilities — the portal keeps evolving with new features without compromising the quality of the platform underneath.
• Paperless custody — LUC handovers that used to depend on carbon-copy slips are signed on a phone, with a PDF receipt sent to everyone involved and kept in the cloud with its location and time.
• Fleet visibility from the ground up — Bluetooth sightings, scans and stock counts captured continuously in the field, so stations can see what they hold and spot what’s missing.
• Damaged units grounded with evidence — damage is reported with photos and location checks, so units that shouldn’t fly are taken out of service and tracked through repair and back.
• Faster everyday work — staff record what they need by laser, Bluetooth sweep, camera or voice, without paperwork.
• Improved delivery confidence — consistent, quality-focused delivery on business-critical releases, close to Unilode’s own teams.
• Operational efficiency — continual review of existing approaches to improve performance and reduce unnecessary technology cost.
• An end-to-end partnership — evolving from mobile app support to comprehensive mobile app frontend engineering, web portal frontend and backend development, business analysis, solution design, deployment and ongoing support.

What this means for air-cargo and logistics software

Asset-heavy logistics operators — moving containers, pallets and equipment across a global network — rarely run on software any vendor sells off the shelf, and often inherit systems built by someone who has since left. Their software also has to serve two very different users: customers who want visibility, and field staff working in sheds and on aprons with poor connectivity. Work like Unilode’s needs a long-term engineering partner that can take ownership of a business-critical platform, connect it to the business’s data, build the portals customers use and the field app the operation runs on, and keep improving both, including through a change of vendor. If you operate that kind of logistics platform and need an engineering team that can own it with you, talk to Toobler’s engineering team.