Airfreight industry welcomes e-freight breakthrough

Live e-freight between agents and airlines could be a reality by mid-year, according to Alwyn Rautenbach, MD of Airlink Cargo and vicechairman of the Air Cargo Operators’ Committee (Acoc). This follows a year-long global development process culminating in three months of trials that involved 15 carriers and eight forwarders – leading the Iata/Fiata consultative council (IFCC) to endorse the multilateral electronic air waybill (e-AWB) agreement in February with some minor amendments. Iata also formally adopted the agreement as its new Resolution 672 at this month’s Doha cargo services conference. The multi-forwarder agreement paves the way for a shift to e-freight, according to Frederic Leger, Iata’s head of cargo business process and standards. He described the agreement as “the biggest achievement in standardsetting in air freight in 20 years”. The agreement was filed a few weeks ago with governments from whom Iata was seeking expedited approval in 30 days. “We hope to go live before mid-year,” Leger added. Iata hopes it will act as the springboard for its ultimate target of 100% conversion to e-AWB by 2015. “It’s a valuable addition to the electronic weapons in our armoury,” said Rautenbach, “and paves the way to a paperless environment in the airfreight industry.” Leger agreed with this principle, noting that standardisation of the format for the e-AWB is expected to accelerate the industry’s move toward paperless transportation. Before this, he added, carriers were confronted with signing hundreds or even thousands of separate bilateral agreements with individual forwarders. According to Rautenbach, all the major carriers flying in and out of the country will go e-AWB, “and the cargo operators will also be switching over.” As an example, Emirates has already been using the electronic system, and Ram Menen, SkyCargo’s divisional senior vice-president, is well known for his work in championing industry-wide e-freight. While there are clearly opportunities for growth, the reality is that the industry is facing a tough future, he told FTW. “One thing we don’t have control of,” he added, “is oil prices, costs of overflying, landing costs and the like. So we need to achieve efficiencies somewhere else – and paper is the single biggest hurdle in cutting costs and creating efficiency. We can almost save 24 hours in that whole chain by eliminating paper – and that 24 hours is money.”