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The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has maintained its 2017 electronic air waybill (eAWB) adoption target, despite missing this year’s by some 10% as largest parts of the freight forwarding industry stubbornly stick to paper.

“The eFreight programme is five and a half years old and it has been a real struggle,” said IATA’s global head of cargo Glyn Hughes. “We are transporting the most advanced technologies using paper systems from the middle of last century, something that must be rectified.”

The association has resigned itself that this year eAWB uptake will close at around the 46% mark, 10 percentage points adrift of the 56% target it set itself. However, except for a slight dip in March, penetration grew steadily this year, with 1.4% and 2.1% growth in September and October, and penetration currently stands at 44%.

“While not as fast as we had hoped, growth this year in eAWB usage has been consistent and regular,” said Mr Hughes.  “And we are still predicting 62% uptake by the close of next year.

“To achieve this we will be identifying tradelanes with strong uptake and focus on accelerating them.

“It’s important to note that whilst the global industry penetration rate is currently at 44% there are many individual carriers and forwarders who have far exceeded this level of penetration and in fact will meet and go beyond the industry target set.  It is therefore important to set a target which provides an ambitious incentive for the industry as well as recognising that there are others who are leading by example.  If the penetration level finishes the year around 46% then I believe that 62% provides both a challenge yet attainable target for the next year,” he explained.

Mr Hughes accepted that the hurdles in achieving full uptake were numerous. He not only pointed to a lack of harmonisation and regulatory restraints – only 65% of tradelanes allow eAWB use – but also to technological limitations with multiple, but often incompatible, messaging systems in use.

“One of the primary systems in use is Cargo Imp, which alone has several iterations that are incompatible with one another,” he said.

“And then there are other systems that, again, are incompatible with one another. What we are doing is pushing for one system to be used – XML.”

When asked by The Loadstar what forwarders that service multiple tradelanes – many of which don’t accept eAWB – should do, Mr Hughes said IATA had specifically developed its Single Process system to tackle this.

“For forwarders put off by having to split shipments and know when to do electric and when to do paper, IATA is pushing its Single Process system,” said Mr Hughes.

“What happens with this is that the forwarders always send their documentation electronically and the carrier supplies paper bills on necessary lanes.”

Mr Hughes also noted that for eTicketing in passenger air travel, there were two parties involved: the airlines and the travel agents.

“There was no discussion with the public; they weren’t asked if they wanted to migrate to eTicketing, it was simply forced upon them,” he added. “In freight we do not have that, we have a supply chain comprised of five to six entities plus the regulatory bodies.

“And then there is the regulation itself. For passenger air travel, the law said that there ‘must be evidence of a contract between both parties’, whereas in cargo it specified that the contract must be ‘paper’, so we have this more complex regulatory issue of ‘paper’ being stipulated.”

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