Carriers hope price hikes will hold as spot rates fall in CNY doldrums
Despite the muted trading activity since China’s new year holiday began this week, spot rates ...
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By Alex Lennane
Relations between FIATA and IATA could become increasingly tense following FIATA’s decision, according to IATA, to “mobilise the industry through collective action against particular carriers”.
FIATA last week encouraged its members to take part in a survey designed to nip in the bud air cargo carriers’ efforts to introduce a paper air waybill surcharge.
The move was picked up by BIFA, the UK freight forwarding association, which asked its members “to join in the stand against the introduction of this surcharge”.
Speaking to ...
Comment on this article
Dave Ambridge
September 08, 2014 at 3:21 pmPlease be aware of the SINGLE PROCESS. This was implemented so that Agents only had 1 process, PAPERLESS. If an AWB is required the Airline, through the GHA, will print and provide it. COAG, with IATA, came up with this initiative to remove this roadblock.
Yes i agree that discounts should be offered as an incentive to E-AWB but conversely if Agents refuse to change then a surcharge to handle paper makes perfect sense. It costs us money to handle paper but nothing to handle and pass electronic data. let’s all get behind E-AWB and drive this forward quicker.
Bob
September 09, 2014 at 4:34 amThe forwarding industry needs to step up and show the airlines that it can and is willing to adopt electronic trading practices. A majority of the players in the forwarding industry (and some airlines)are being lethargic about e-AWB adoption. Yes, on some trade lanes e-AWB cannot be implemented currently due to regulatory hurdles. However, both airlines as well as forwarders should push for complete e-AWB adoption on trade-lanes where it can be used. This will also be an eye-opener for other countries / regulators that have been slow with the uptake. Otherwise we will just be pushing the goal-post further and further and still be using paper AWB’s 50 years from now. So I would whole heartedly support any initiative that is meant to disincentivise the paper AWB.
Andy Robins
September 09, 2014 at 2:37 amI can understand a reduction on HAWB fees if the agent is submitting the data electronically. This saving the airline the burden and time and the agent is duly compensated for that.
For countries who require the information prior to sending this makes sense, (no need to clog up the export sheds of the carriers).
To impose fines to countries where there is no pre manifest requirement, appears to be on the “going green” agenda, which has it’s moments, good or bad.
As the mass majority of cargo (not sure of the stats) is in the belly of passenger aircraft, we are talking about the cargo document pouch that accompanies the cargo.
I do agree the way forward is on the E-AWB, as this will be the first step towards other documents being accepted electronically.
But if it is a green issue, the cargo document pouch from my days is about a couple of kilos. Compared to perhaps around 100 kilos or more of newspapers and magazines supplied upstairs to the passengers. How hard is it to have those digitized on the passengers screens.
John DeBenedette
September 09, 2014 at 5:00 amThe distinction between an incentive vs a penalty scheme to motivate an industry’s core processes to change from manual to electronic comes down to timing. At first what seems like a penalty, becomes an incentive as critical mass develops, and ultimately doing business electronically becomes an advantage we can’t imagine living without.
The good news for freight forwarders is that E-AWB can be easy and many solutions to participate are readily available.
Our platform, WIN (winwebconnect.com), provides a one stop solution for instant connectivity to 85 Airlines including e-AWB so as a forwarder, there’s really no good reason to be in the position to absorb these new fees or pass them on to shippers. The same can be said for the per HAWB charges mentioned in the article with most airlines having policies similar to LH.
The benefits of participation by forwarders are often overlooked and understated, for example instead of operational processes becoming fragmentation from using dozens of individual carrier websites to avoid fees and surcharges, a multi-carrier platform consolidates this down to one. Plus the forwarder has the option to simply connect their existing AWB print solution via modern web-service APIs (rather than costly and cryptic legacy EDI) to avoid double data entry. Of course real-time AWB tracking is included so customer service staff don’t have to waste time tracking shipments, as are data (vs. email only) pre-alerts to the destination with secure document transfer so independent forwarders working as partner agents both benefit from the participation by the origin forwarder.
It is therefore logical to interpret these bold but inevitable moves by airlines as a needed catalyst to rapidly accelerate participation and I predict that history will look back kindly on this hopefully short middle stage of transformation.
Dave Ambridge
September 09, 2014 at 2:21 pmJohn
I agree 100% and anyone who says they can’t do E-AWB really just doesn’t understand the huge benefits they can gain from adoption. You know full well my stance on this and i grow more frustrated each time someone says they CAN’T. What they really mean is they don’t want to.
As a GHA we have offered discounts to any Agent submitting FWB/FHL to us prior to delivering the Cargo. We have not had 1 single Agent do this in over 4 years!
I wonder why?