Customs intervention key in air cargo safety battle

Eradicating the unsafe carriage of lithium batteries by air demands a lot more than supply chain vigilance. Customs authorities should be dealing with it in the same way as they approach illegal narcotics, in the view of International Air Transport Association regional cargo head, Glyn Hughes, eliminating the problem at source.
“Every week you hear of a container catching fire, and generally lithium batteries are the culprit. It’s not a supply chain issue but rather a government manufacturing issue – the same as counterfeiting – and we urge states to treat it in the same way,” said Hughes. “We can provide help to track the originator – who
is often in China – but incidents aren’t happening in China. We need to try to put the onus on China to track down the perpetrators.” A recent house fire in Australia was caused by an unbranded charger catching alight. In a separate incident, an accident waiting to happen involved a shipment
offloaded in the Middle East that was found to contain 100 000 lithium batteries falsely declared as teddy bears. They were counterfeit and therefore not manufactured to competent standards. “If you pay too little it should ring alarm bells,” said Hughes. And while the shipper is ultimately liable there
needs to be a concerted international effort to expose anomalies. “In the case of the lithium batteries, the weight of the container could never have approximated the weight  of a container of teddy bears. “If it doesn’t look right then you must apply intuitive logic.”