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The IATA World Cargo Symposium
held in March in Bangkok and attended by over 700 delegates, called for
a supply chain approach to battle the current air cargo crisis,
highlighting speed, efficiency and reliability.
“The feedback at the conference was clear,” said Aleks
Popovich, IATA Global Head of Cargo. “The downturn is the time to bring
forward action. We need to move faster and start reaping the benefits
of speed, efficiency and reliability from industry programmes such as
e-freight and Cargo 2000.”
E-freight will continue to be a key driver for speed,
efficiency and cost savings. E-freight currently has the capability to
convert 12 paper documents to e-documents and is already operating at
19 locations covering 27 airports. By 2010, the target is to have the
capability to remove 64% of the paper from 81% of international
shipments.
The conference also highlighted the need to improve
quality via Cargo 2000. This project was established over a decade ago
to simplify processes by reducing 40 steps in the logistics chain to 19
and to implement effective quality standards.
Quality will also play its part in the Cargo Account
Settlement System (CASS). Conference meetings managed to resolve one
particular difficulty which will allow forwarders to benefit from the
airlines’ speedier resolution of billing errors.
Meanwhile, air cargo security costs continue to rise.
Screening technology is not being optimised and definitions,
requirements and enforcement vary from country to country. Regulators
are now focusing heavily on cargo security and the Industry has a real opportunity
to influence the outcome.
"Scanning everything loaded onto the aircraft is a
waste of precious resources, "said Popovich. " To be
effective, we must develop a cohesive supply chain approach which
secures the cargo up-stream and protects the speed of processing.
IATA’s Secure Freight strategy focuses on integrating security measures
into the current business model and sharing responsibility throughout
the supply chain. Governments must remember that this is a global
industry. We need a globally coordinated approach that looks at the
entire supply chain.”
Wide ranges of actions were agreed at various industry
meetings and tracks during the IATA World Cargo Symposium which are
outlined in a special issue of Cargo Tracker.
Access this special edition
of Tracker dedicated to Cargo Symposium proceedings
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