IATA

Change factors

2. IATA

Cargo Handling Agents 55

system. When CHIEF was being developed, it was realized that the 20 or so companies using the bureau would have no choice but to create a replacement system. Fortunately, one of those affected, Cargo Handling Technologies, had a very astute manager in Luthier Brazier who managed to convince 20 like­minded companies to share the costs of developing a replacement and funding the contract with BT to build it. Airports Bureau Systems Ltd (ABS) was born in 1993 and was responsible for managing the contract with BT.

The ABS2000 system was installed all over the UK and provided those func­

tions required by a GHA (General Handling Agent). Today ABS is about to launch its new product ABS5 in three continents with over 30 users including the major handling companies of WFS, Swissport, Dnata and Servisair.

Through the foresight of those early computer pioneers that created LACES, the foundations were laid for the current CCS­UK system, which is totally paperless for those that participate in it. The system is overseen by a user group made up of directors from ASM, ABS and the representatives from the Airline Consultative Committee, so the main three industries of airlines, forwarders and handling agents are able to influence developments and tariffs.

For those airlines that operated into the UK during the past 40 years, the paperless process has provided them with the ability to adopt all the messages (UNEDIFACT) for Customs and to exchange data with the other parties in the logistics pipeline. Although these could be provided by a third party, many chose to integrate these requirements into their own systems and the basis for e­freight could be said to have started with LACES, which is why it was so significant a change.

Today HM Customs is starting to define the system that will replace CHIEF in 2018. The X25 network has been replaced with an internet­based VPN and BT is still managing CCS­UK. While many other countries have now adopted many of its features, not one other country has quite matched the efficiency of the UK system.

Figure

5.1

CCS-UK flowchart

Availability Reservations Rates etc

HM Customs In-house system Airline in-house

Systems

Message switching/

conversion

Shed Operator In-house systems Community

accessible Customs data status

Database and Customs Local Processing

SEQUOIA

CCS-UK CHIEF

ABS-5 Internet

Agent systems

Cargo Handling Agents 57

IATA grew up as the governing body of air travel, but has transformed itself into an industry champion for change and a guardian of industry­wide standards and procedures, for example dangerous goods handling. Its current focus (and for the last five years at least) has been to introduce e­AWB and e­freight into the air cargo industry. Recently, Des Vertannes, global head of cargo at IATA, said: ‘Generally we need to move the goalposts. Customers are paying for a premium service but they are not getting one. It’s incumbent on the industry to revolutionize the process.’ IATA’s aim is to raise quality and speed of delivery.

The industry needs to cut 48 hours off the average end­to­end time of a consignment by the end of this decade. The problem is that targets for IATA e­freight keep slipping. At the 2010 Air Cargo Forum, the expectation was that the whole cargo industry would be paperless by 2014, but IATA reset its target as 22 per cent of feasible shipments by the end of 2014 and it fell very short of that.

When asked for the reasons for the slippage, IATA quotes the sluggish uptake of paperless Customs clearances in several key countries. Two notable examples are India and China, which have signed the 1999 Montreal Convention that makes paperless carriage possible but still insist on physical documents for Customs clearances. It also recognizes that six consecutive years of market stagnation have meant that airline cargo departments have reduced scope to invest in the IT systems required to support e­freight.

This explains the slow take­up, but the real stopper is answering the question ‘What’s in it for us?’ for every part of the pipeline. One can see how an airline can benefit from removing the management of paper, and a GHA will be forced to accept e­freight because the airlines say so. The real issue is what’s in it for the agent and shipper. For the agent, it’s all about reducing the time taken for the truck driver to deliver or pick up at the airline’s ware­

house. Data entry takes a long time but IATA completely misses the point that the receiving facility needs to know what’s on the truck before it arrives.

Just having the waybill data electronically is not enough: receivers need the truck manifest as well or a pick­up list for imports.

The good news is that in 2014 there were real signs that airlines and the larger forwarders were really getting to grips with e­freight, and speed of adoption is increasing. It is still limited as the procedures defined by IATA do not cover those procedures in the warehouse: this is left to the individual operators, but some are moving to electronic procedures faster than others.