IATA recognizes China Southern Airlines for e-AWB implementation in Shanghai

Sep 07, 2018: The global airlines’ body IATA has recently awarded Guangzhou-based airline China Southern Airlines as Top Three Airlines 2017 for its outstanding e-AWB achievement in Shanghai area.

It is the second time that China Southern Airlines received the honor for e-AWB implementation, with the first one in last year as Potential Star 2017.

Since the debut of domestic e-AWB implemented on October 10, 2009, China Southern Cargo has rolled out e-AWB at totally 15 departure stations and 96 arrival stations, averaging to 160,000 shipments monthly ranking he world's top three in domestic e-AWB volume. International e-AWBs are mainly used on direct international routes ex Guangzhou and Shanghai, also on some overseas return routes, with an amount of average 16,000 shipments monthly. 

Out of all stations where e-AWB is implemented, Shanghai area has shown excellent results. Starting from 2016, China Southern Cargo has worked with its Shanghai office, to help overcome many difficulties in rolling out e-AWB in third party handled cargo terminal, interface of systems, and change of operational processes. 

Further, China Southern Cargo has set up data exchanging programme and operation procedures for international e-AWB implementation in Shanghai. A new mechanism of using CCSP platform to capture AWB data is helpful to solve the EDI interchange between some of the agents’ IT systems and China Southern Cargo system. It took only six months for shanghai office to successfully implement e-AWB on 7 international routes ex PVG. This increased e-AWB penetration from 0 to 80 percent, and it maintained over 90 percent ever since.

For Guangzhou, for January-April period this year, e-AWBs were used on 16 international routes with an average over 3000 MAWBs per month, penetration rate up to 54 percent. After coordination with relevant parties, a further expansion of e-AWB was achieved since May 21. 

China Southern Cargo’s next big steps involve work on all of its international routes and achieve the goal of paperless air transportation, boosting further developments towards e-freight. 

“In addition, we will explore the possibility of implementing e-AWB in other airports such as Shenzhen,” informs the carrier through a statement.