At the NCBFAA's Annual Conference in Summerlin, NV, there was a panel discussing the past and future of aviation.
Warren Jones, the head of Cargo Network Services, IATA's United States arm, mentioned that IATA was planning to create global standards for ground handlers, a group which air freight forwarders, truckers, Customs brokers and airlines alike would love to see deliver continuity of service. While the talk was in the early stages, more details about its goals and potential rollout have firmed up. Below is excerpted from Brendan Sullivan of IATA in a recent email on the subject:
Cargo handling is performed at thousands of airports all over the world by hundreds of handlers, big and small. This poses a high potential risk for deviations in quality and consistency of handling. IATA's Cargo Operations Advisory Group (COAG) comprised of airlines and ground handlers developed a list of capabilities against which a cargo facility could be measure. The purpose of this matrix is to enhance cargo handling capabilities to a consistently high standard while identifying possible non-compliance on critical areas such as safety or security. The areas of activity that were initially considered were as follows: 1. Safety, ensures undeclared dangerous goods are screened for 2. Security, ensuring all regulations are complied with 3. Special Cargo (Pharmaceuticals, Live Animals, Perishables, Express), ensuring the most vulnerable cargo is properly cared for 4. ULDs, ensuring safe handling of these expensive assets 5. Messaging, recognizing the value of data 6. Mail, ensuring the postal operations are handled effectively 7. General Cargo Principles (acceptance, etc.) COAG has completed their development and anticipates Cargo Committee endorsement. The next steps will be to propose an validation model to assess and validate the current capabilities of cargo handling facilities against existing standards, identifying best "best in class" and increasing the capabilities in the industry through adoption of best practices. To avoid over burdening the industry with audits, the validation model will seek to consider integrating into existing audits such as the IATA ISAGO or ACC3 audits. Footnotes: Reporting jointly to the IATA Cargo Committee and the Ground Handling Council, the Cargo Operations Advisory Group (COAG) has been established to bring together members from airlines and ground handling agents to develop best-practice processes and procedures to address all aspect of cargo acceptance and handling. The COAG aims to work on the review, improvement and development of cargo operations processes and procedures for incorporation into the IATA Airport Handling Manual (AHM) and IATA Ground Operations Manual (IGOM). The objective being to develop operations processes that can be adopted by airlines and ground handling agents and that will ultimately lead to a greater degree of standardization and harmonization for cargo acceptance and handling. www.iata.org/coag The next steps for the project are to have the Cargo Service Conference (e.g. airlines) review and provide input, then ASA and IGHC (e.g. ground handlers). Following that along with some trials COAG will be able to propose a way forward (validation model).