Cathay Cargo has become the first carrier to adopt the International Air Transport Association’s (Iata) ONE Record data protocol in some of its day-to-day operations with forwarders.
The carrier’s achievement is one year ahead of Iata’s target date for ONE Record implementation, which is scheduled for January 2026.
The initiative is designed to make shipment information relevant to stakeholders visible and accessible to everyone along the supply chain - from shippers and forwarders to airlines, ground handlers and customs services.
According to Cathay Cargo, three freight forwarders on the Chinese Mainland – Sinotrans Air Freight, WECAN International Freight Forwarding International Logistics, and ALL-LINK Logistics – started exchanging electronic air waybill (eAWB) and shipment status information with the carrier in December 2024. They used an application programme interface (API) designed in line with ONE Record data protocols.
And then in January 2025, Sinotrans Hong Kong Air Transportation Development became the first Hong Kong forwarder to submit eAWB information and is now able to review shipment information from Cathay Cargo using ONE Record data protocols.
Cathay Cargo director, Tom Owen, said the carrier was taking a leadership role in the digitalisation of the air-cargo shipment process.
“We are well positioned to meet Iata’s ONE Record implementation target of January 2026. The technical ease of aligning our key customers’ systems using ONE Record protocols with APIs highlights that there is nothing to fear in making the change, and lots to be gained from the operational efficiencies, enhanced security and greater transparency of the overall shipment process,” Owen said.
Sinotrans uploaded its eAWB information through ONE Record via a specialised digital interface coordinated, designed and hosted by Cathay Cargo’s partner, Global Logistics System (HK) Company Limited (GLS).
Iata’s initiative enables end-to-end transparency for consignments, logging progress as they pass through multiple links in the air cargo chain from shipper to agent, airline, warehouse and statutory authorities such as customs.
This enables all stakeholders in the shipment process to extract richer data from the ONE Record beyond the standard departure and arrival data derived from CIMP (Cargo Interchange Message Procedure), the standard communication link between airline and forwarder. Additional information that can be viewed includes multidimensional data like temperature and geolocation.
Sinotrans director of digitalisation, Wen Xuan Zang, said the innovative approach would “revolutionise our operations, enhancing efficiency and transparency in cargo shipment processes”.
“We look forward to setting new industry standards together with Cathay Cargo and providing our customers with an even higher level of service,” he said.
Iata head of digital cargo, Henk Mulder, said the data was only meaningful when considered together, in the context of one shipment.
He said the new data-sharing standard offered “an intelligent data infrastructure” where data is linked in a vast, decentralised network, allowing stakeholders to access it for updates to drive their transport and logistics processes.
“I am delighted to see this real-world production example of communication between different cargo stakeholders,” Mulder said.
