IATA announces successful trials of Electronic Consignment Security Declaration

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced successful trials of the Electronic Consignment Security Declaration, (e-CSD).

The e-CSD meets regulatory demands for evidence that appropriate security measures have been applied to air cargo and mail by detailing how, when and by whom a consignment of cargo or mail has been secured. By standardizing the process and documentation of such evidence, e-CSD will replace redundant security declarations in various formats and simplify the implementation of security emergency amendments.

The e-CSD trials were conducted in the UK followed by the Netherlands during October. This followed 18 months of intense work by IATA (with regulators, freight forwarders and other key stakeholders) to develop standards and processes for data capture.

“These successful trials will improve both security and efficiency. The e-CSD is a key element in securing the whole supply chain. By establishing that cargo and mail consignments have been correctly secured upstream of the airport and through transit points, bottlenecks and delays will be reduced. The endorsement of the UK Department of Transport and regulators in the Netherlands is very significant, as this paves the way for other key regulators to review and hopefully endorse the e-CSD in the months to come,” said Des Vertannes, IATA Global Head of Cargo.

The UK trial tested direct shipments and Kuehne + Nagel consolidation shipments with Air France from London Heathrow to Paris Charles de Gaulle. E-CSD data was transmitted from the Servisair facility in London Heathrow in cooperation with the UK Department for Transport, over the Traxon network. The trial successfully proved that:

The necessary security information for a master air waybill consolidation security declaration was transmitted by K&N and successfully received by Servisair who provides ground handling services for Air France.

The necessary supporting security information for the individual house bills associated to the master air waybill was contained in the K&N internal system.

The Netherlands trial consisted of two live data transmission tests, one for a direct back to back shipment (involving a single shipper and consignee) from Amsterdam Schiphol to Shanghai PVG and the other a consolidation shipment from Schiphol to New York JFK. The tests were coordinated by Air Cargo Netherlands (ACN), audited by the NCTV Ministry of Security and Justice and the Royal Marechaussee.

“Planning is now under way to conduct live operational shipment trials. This will provide industry and regulators with more findings and allow for fine tuning based on live operational data. Once this limited live trial period is completed, the industry will be able to replace the wide variety of security declarations used today with a global harmonized electronic consignment security declaration,” said Vertannes.