You are probably carrying one of the world’s most profitable ecosystems in your pocket right now.
We use apps to book hotels, pay for lunch, stream music, store photographs and find lost devices. Each action feels like a separate convenience. Behind the screen, these companies are building deeper relationships with their customers. Every interaction adds information, removes friction and helps them understand what the customer may need next.
Marriott Bonvoy makes the model easy to see. Its app provides one entrance to more than 8,700 hotels across brands built for different budgets, locations and reasons to travel. Customers can discover and book properties, manage points, check in, unlock rooms, contact staff, request services and, at participating hotels, even order food.
By the end of 2025, Bonvoy had nearly 271 million members, who accounted for 68 percent of Marriott’s room nights worldwide. During the same year, Marriott generated $5.38 billion in adjusted EBITDA and returned more than $4 billion to shareholders. Those figures do not isolate Bonvoy’s contribution, but they show how central the ecosystem has become to attracting customers, retaining them and directing business back into Marriott’s physical hotels.
Apple built an even larger ecosystem around physical devices. The iPhone, Mac, iPad, Watch and AirPods provide the entry points. Software, payments, entertainment, cloud storage and third-party applications connect those products through one account and one familiar interface. Apple’s $3 billion acquisition of Beats added headphones, audio technology and a subscription music service to that wider relationship.
In 2025, the App Store ecosystem facilitated more than $1.4 trillion in developer billings and sales, more than four times the $307 billion Apple generated from physical products. Apple did not record that $1.4 trillion as its own revenue, but the comparison shows the extraordinary scale of commerce flowing through the ecosystem it created. Apple’s own services businesses generated a further $109.2 billion in revenue during the year.
The real power of these digital ecosystems is greater than cross-selling. They become more valuable by becoming more helpful. Marriott learns where customers travel, which brands they choose and which benefits encourage them to return. Apple connects how customers
communicate, listen, pay, work and store information. Each company can use that understanding to recommend relevant services, reward participation and remove decisions from the next interaction. Discounts may encourage loyalty. Usefulness earns it.
Discounts may encourage loyalty. Usefulness earns it.
The same logic applies in aerospace, although most of the ecosystem remains invisible to the passenger. Airlines depend on specialist companies across cargo, catering, maintenance and digital systems. Each supplier may perform well, yet the airline is often left to connect those products, services and information itself.
CCE Group is being built around that opportunity. For us, our industrial ecosystem connects products, data, services and specialist companies around how our airline customers actually operate.
Wherever Humanity Goes, Commerce Follows
If humanity establishes a colony on Mars, it will need cargo.
Food, medicine, machinery, scientific equipment, spare parts and personal possessions will have to travel with us. Passengers will still need to eat and drink during the journey.
We can make that prediction with confidence because aviation already shows us how movement works. Every day, airlines and logistics networks move essential goods through containers, warehouses, airports, aircraft and handling teams. Success looks like boring reliability: the bag arrives, the meal is loaded, the medicine stays cold and the component reaches the factory.
The distance and technology may change. The underlying challenge will not. Goods will still need to be contained, protected, cooled, secured, tracked and maintained.
Today, airlines manage thousands of assets across increasingly complex networks while trying to reduce cost, weight, waste and emissions. Lost equipment, aging fleets, battery risks and fragmented information make that work harder.
I knew that hidden infrastructure from the inside. I began my career as a project manager, working across departments without the authority to command any of them. The role taught me how complex systems fit together and how much progress depends on people with different priorities moving toward the same outcome. I later led the business that became AviusULD.
That experience changed how I saw the industry. Better products would always matter, but airlines also needed help reducing the cost, risk and uncertainty surrounding their use. The opportunity was to connect equipment, data and services around the way airlines actually operate.
I took that conviction into my conversations with Hivest Capital. When Hivest acquired Safran’s cargo and catering activities in 2023, it backed the broader vision as well as the businesses themselves. AviusULD was already a leading producer of the containers and pallets that carry cargo and baggage inside aircraft. Driessen Catering Equipment was the market leader in the trolleys and galley equipment used to serve passengers in the cabin.
Both companies had spent decades building specialist knowledge, engineering discipline and trust with airlines around the world. Hivest could have treated them as two successful businesses in attractive niche markets. Instead, it supported the plan to use them as the foundation of a connected aerospace platform and appointed me Group CEO of CCE Group while I was still in my mid-thirties.
I accepted the role with a clear mission: unite exceptional niche leaders into a global aerospace platform force while preserving what makes each unique. The final words matter. The platform had to expand the reach of AviusULD and Driessen without erasing the qualities that had made them market leaders.
Hivest’s backing gave us the ability to invest in technology, acquire complementary specialists and extend into services. We began with two market leaders. The next step was to make each one even more useful to customers and add capabilities that strengthened the core business.
Turn Traditional Products Into Strategic Assets
Every business says it understands its customers. The real test is whether it can see the cost, risk and waste surrounding the product it sells, then invest in removing them.
Airlines buy containers. They also absorb the cost of losing sight of them.
As containers move between airports, warehouses, freight forwarders and repair stations, they can disappear from view. An airline may lease or purchase additional equipment because it cannot locate the assets it already has, or send empty units across the world to cover a shortage elsewhere. Even location data leaves an important question unanswered: is the container empty or loaded? Without that information, airlines can reposition equipment unnecessarily while usable capacity remains elsewhere in the network.
We treated that uncertainty as part of the problem AviusULD was responsible for solving. That pushed our research and development beyond the container itself and into the information surrounding its movement and use.
Tracking technology already existed, but most systems came with compromises. Battery-powered devices eventually need charging or replacement. Fixed readers work only
where somebody has installed the infrastructure. Basic location data may find an asset without revealing whether it is carrying cargo.
AviusULD and our technology partner eloc8 set out to remove those compromises. The result was SmartULD. The device converts movement and vibration into power, continually recharging itself as the container moves. Rather than waiting to pass an airport reader, it sends data directly over existing mobile networks. Satellite positioning locates the container outdoors, while Wi-Fi signals help locate it inside warehouses. An occupancy sensor adds the missing operational detail by showing whether the container is empty or loaded.
Airlines can identify where equipment is accumulating, anticipate shortages, distinguish loaded capacity from empty units and reposition containers according to demand. Better information can reduce unnecessary leasing, avoidable purchasing and wasted journeys.
DHL Express was an early adopter of SmartULD, committing to an initial deployment of 30,000 devices. SmartULD generated power from normal container movement and transmitted data without relying on airport readers or fixed infrastructure. During the first three months of scaled deployment, more than 20,000 devices reported from 456 airports across 102 countries, generated more than 20 million operational messages and mapped over 7,000 off-airport locations. As a result, the system revealed how containers were moving across DHL Express’s global cargo network, including more than 7,000 off-airport locations beyond the fixed reader networks on which traditional tracking depends.
Driessen also began connecting equipment that airlines had traditionally managed with limited visibility. CLEO360 uses connected tags and a digital platform to show where catering trolleys are, how they move and how they are being used. Airlines can also monitor idle time, maintenance needs and operational steps such as cleaning and handover, giving them a clearer view of the fleet across the catering operation.
Safety created a more urgent problem. Lithium-ion batteries travel in phones, laptops, baggage and cargo on almost every flight. A damaged battery can release gases long before smoke or flames appear. Earlier detection gives valuable time to respond.
Technology developed around connected cargo assets has also moved into the cabin. AviusULD and eloc8 created the Smart Cabin Fire Tag to detect early warning signs of lithium-ion battery failure inside overhead compartments, up to two hours before a fire. The solution won the 2026 Crystal Cabin Award for Cabin Technologies. The jury praised its “simple and elegant approach to a highly relevant safety challenge” and saw “strong potential for it to become an industry baseline.”
Turning analog equipment into connected, data-producing assets marked an important step in building the CCE Group ecosystem. A container or trolley could become part of the airline’s operating system, helping control costs, manage capacity, reduce risk and improve decisions.
The next question followed naturally: what other customer problems could we solve?
Make Every Acquisition Strengthen the Core
An acquisition should make the business you already own more useful.
CCE Group began with leading positions in air cargo containers and onboard catering equipment. AviusULD and Driessen gave us trusted products, specialist engineering and established airline relationships. Those relationships also showed us what airlines still had to source, coordinate and manage around the equipment we supplied.
AviusULD supplied the containers and pallets used to move cargo inside aircraft. Its customers also needed nets, straps, protective covers, thermal protection and fire-containment solutions to secure and protect what those containers carried.
We found an ideal partner in Trip & Co. The company served many of the same airlines and brought specialist products that complemented AviusULD without duplicating its expertise.
Bringing Trip & Co into CCE Group created our cargo division around two established market leaders. Together, AviusULD and Trip & Co can address a broader range of the airline’s cargo needs through one coordinated relationship. Airlines can work through one commercial contact, receive products in the same delivery and involve both engineering teams in shared product development.
AviusULD develops the containers and pallets. Trip & Co develops the equipment that secures and protects the cargo they carry. The customer receives a more complete solution with fewer suppliers, deliveries and technical conversations to coordinate.
Trip & Co’s thermal covers protect food, medicine and other temperature-sensitive goods during transport, storage and loading. That brings the cargo division into another problem shared across aviation: maintaining stable temperatures throughout the journey.
Driessen encounters the same problem in the cabin. Its trolleys and galley equipment help airlines serve passengers, but the food inside must remain safe and fresh from the catering facility until it reaches the passenger.
Icebridge helps solve another part of that cold chain. The company specializes in passive cooling and serves many of the same airlines. Its reusable cooling cassettes work with Driessen’s equipment to maintain more stable temperatures throughout the catering journey.
Bringing Icebridge into CCE Group created our catering division. Driessen understands the trolley, the galley, the aircraft environment and the demands placed on cabin crews. Icebridge
understands temperature control throughout the cold chain. Together, they can connect onboard equipment with the cooling systems that protect food throughout its journey.
Their relationship produced the Cool Trolley, built specifically around Icebridge cooling cassettes. Both teams worked together to improve compatibility, temperature stability, weight, handling, food quality and total cost of ownership for this specialist catering trolley.
The catering division can also use its combined position to challenge outdated industry practice. This year, Driessen and Icebridge signed the Vision Zero Dry Ice pledge, committing to develop no new products dependent on dry ice and encouraging airlines to move away from it by 2030.
Dry ice remains common because it provides cooling without onboard electricity, but it does not maintain a consistent temperature throughout the trolley. That uneven cooling can reduce freshness, negatively affect taste and shorten the usable life of food, increasing waste before the meal reaches the passenger.
Icebridge offers a more reliable alternative. Its reusable cooling cassettes require neither dry ice nor onboard electricity and maintain stable, evenly distributed temperatures throughout the cold chain. Integrated into Driessen’s catering equipment, the cassettes help food stay fresher for longer, taste better and reach more passengers instead of being discarded.
Together, Driessen and Icebridge give airlines a credible route toward more stable cooling, less waste and better food quality.
Our most recent acquisition extends the same logic beyond complementary products.
Airlines are keeping aircraft in service for longer, increasing the need for maintenance, repair and refurbishment. InTech Aerospace gives CCE Group specialist capability across cabin interiors, including seats, upholstery, panels, plastics and composite components. It also strengthens our presence in North America, close to many airline customers already served across the group.
InTech extends CCE Group into the maintenance, repair and refurbishment of aircraft cabin interiors. Its teams see how seats, panels, plastics, upholstery and composite components age in service, where failures occur and which design choices create unnecessary cost or downtime. That practical knowledge can inform future cabin engineering and product development while helping airlines keep interiors in service for longer.
The approach resembles the ecosystem logic behind Marriott. Each specialist retains its identity while extending the range of needs the wider group can serve. AviusULD and Trip & Co combine capabilities around cargo. Driessen and Icebridge connect catering equipment with cooling and food quality. InTech extends CCE Group into cabin maintenance and refurbishment.
The right acquisition preserves the expertise that made the company valuable while making the existing business more useful. Buying revenue may make a company larger. Connecting complementary strengths creates value that neither company could produce alone.
Mobilize the Ecosystem
An ecosystem becomes real when people across the company can see the future they are building together.
In January 2026, dozens of leaders from CCE Group headquarters in Paris, AviusULD, Driessen, Trip & Co and Icebridge traveled to Bangkok for CCE-X, our first group-wide leadership summit.
We held it in a Marriott Bonvoy hotel deliberately. Around us was a working example of specialist brands, services and customer information connected through one wider relationship.
Over two days, we examined the future of aviation, where the companies could collaborate, how shared customers could access more of the group through fewer relationships and which capabilities could become joint products or services.
CCE-X showed the wider company where we are going. The cargo division could connect containers, restraints, protection and digital visibility. The catering division could also combine digital visibility with onboard equipment, cooling and food quality. Technology developed around one asset could solve a different problem elsewhere in the aircraft. Shared customers could gain access to more expertise through a simpler relationship.
We are still at the beginning of this mission.
CCE Group has a multiyear plan to help airlines manage more of their cargo, catering and cabin equipment through specialist companies they already know and trust. We will connect more physical assets and use data on their location, condition and usage to improve decisions. We will reduce waste, weight and unnecessary equipment movement, extend product life through repair and refurbishment, combine products where the customer benefits and coordinate service across the group.
It will also mean contracts that give airlines one commercial point of access across several CCE Group capabilities. The customer should be able to reach the right product, service or specialist without starting again each time. Information from one interaction should make the next one faster, simpler and more relevant.
Further acquisitions will strengthen the existing divisions or help CCE Group solve other important customer needs. The standard will remain the same: preserve what made the specialist company valuable and ensure that its addition makes the wider group more useful.
Technology will continue to play an important role. Artificial intelligence can help forecast demand, identify asset imbalances, anticipate maintenance and improve the allocation of equipment. It can only do that when the physical operation produces reliable data. An algorithm cannot optimize an asset it cannot see. Connecting the analog world comes first.
The immediate work may sound less dramatic than traveling to Mars. It means finding a container before an airline leases another one. It means reducing food waste while improving freshness. It means detecting a battery problem earlier, lowering the weight carried on every flight and extending the life of an aircraft interior rather than replacing it unnecessarily.
Every product, acquisition and technology investment must help the customer operate more safely, efficiently or sustainably.
The same lessons apply to industries outside aerospace. Begin with something customers already trust. Understand the costs, risks and frustrations surrounding it. Add digital capability where better information improves decisions. Connect complementary products and services around the customer’s outcome. Extend the relationship through the product lifecycle. Acquire selectively and protect the specialist expertise that created the value in the first place.
Apple and Marriott show what can happen when an ecosystem deepens the customer relationship. It can strengthen retention, increase participation, create recurring revenue and improve the quality of earnings.
Investors will ultimately judge CCE Group through comparable outcomes: more joint customer wins, stronger retention, recurring digital and service revenue, greater lifecycle participation and evidence that each company performs better because it belongs to the group.
A stronger valuation multiple would be a consequence of those results. It cannot be created by attaching sensors to equipment or describing a portfolio as an ecosystem. CCE Group will earn it by making airlines more successful and turning that usefulness into durable economics.
The same logic will increasingly shape industrial businesses. Better products will remain essential, but competitive advantage will also come from staying connected to the asset throughout its working life, using data, services and complementary expertise to solve the next customer problem.
Aerospace will be one of the clearest tests of that shift. The next generation of aircraft will create new demands, risks and opportunities across cargo, catering and the cabin. Beyond that, nobody can say with confidence where aerospace technology will lead. New forms of transport, new operating models and exciting new destinations will create problems for customers that do not exist today.
Our mission gives us a clear direction of travel: unite exceptional niche leaders into a global aerospace platform force while preserving what makes each unique.
CCE Group will follow our mission wherever it leads.
Even if, one day, it leads to Mars.
