SA awaits Iata e-freight planning schedule

THERE IS still no sign of SA in the latest list of countries and areas which will be the first and second waves breaking into e-freight – the electronic data interchange of all the documentation attached to the movement of international air cargo. The International Air Transport Association (Iata) has already started the scheme with six e-freight pilot projects on key trade routes connecting Canada, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden and the UK. Currently, according to information sent to FTW by Iata’s head office in Geneva, the association is conducting a high-level assessment of locations to determine where the e-freight programme should go next. This assessment includes whether the location is ratified MP4 and /or MCC 99 (allowing the use of electronic messaging to replace the air waybill), and also whether it will have a customs modernisation programme ready for implementation prior to the end of 2010 (which will allow the automated customs release of goods for both import and export). “A location meeting the high-level criteria will also undergo a further detailed assessment to determine its willingness and ability to participate in the programme,” the Iata spokesman said, “including regulatory, technical and business processes for all stakeholders across the supply chain.” The association is busy proving this detailed assessment in Australia, Dubai, Germany, Korea, Luxembourg and Spain – and the results are expected by early 2008. “It is planned to produce a list of target of locations by June 2008, for implementation between 2008 and 2010.” Iata had no comment to make on whether SA would be part of this list – but its original assessment of target countries, released to FTW early last year, included SA, USA, New Zealand, and the European Union (EU). However, there has been little more than a ripple of e-freight activity in the local transport and freight industries. Although information technology (IT) and other executives in these sectors have admitted to FTW that they are aware e-freight is imminent – the overall consensus was summarised by one airfreight agent who said: “As yet, we have no clear picture of the target showing on our radar.” But all asserted that it would require no more than a “tweak or two” to their operational and administrative policies to bring e-freight on-line. The accompanying big benefit, they added, would be the ultimately paper-free airfreight procedure with original documentation only having to be produced if there was a legal demand for it.