The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has recently released the ‘Carriage of Cargo, Mail, and Baggage - Guidance for Operators’, which seeks to serve as guidance material for aircraft operators to develop safety risk assessments for the carriage of cargo, mail, and baggage, with a focus on Dangerous Goods. James Wyatt, General Manager at German aviation management consulting firm aeroconcept unpacks some of the salient points of the guidance material

This guide seeks to enhance the regulation surrounding the carriage of Lithium batteries, enabling further transparency across the supply chain and ensuring the various stakeholders along the supply chain are made aware of their responsibilities.

Aircraft operators do not necessarily need to perform a safety risk assessment for each and every flight when it concerns the carriage of Lithium batteries. They must rather develop a specific safety risk assessment that encompasses all of the elements of the risk in order for them to take decisions for a consistent operational approach.

This new guidance material requests that all variables are taken into consideration in order for the airline operator to make an accurate safety risk assessment. This could include items like the aircraft type, compartment fire suppression capability, Unit Load Device (ULD) fire suppression capability, routing of the aircraft and warehouse handling procedures.

This is a ‘guidance’ material, designed to enhance the safety risk assessment of all the stakeholders involved, ultimately ensuring that the airline operator is able to make informed decisions.

eCommerce operators must have transparency on what they are shipping. This starts with the shipment data, a check of approved shippers for dangerous goods, physical acceptance, and processing before the flight event.

Digitization is a key component of the industry and the more this takes place the better for safety. If the shipper/freight forwarder is transmitting the consignment data to the airline before the cargo physically arrives at their facility, then the airline can already get to work on that consignment and work with the data to perform checks on the shipper and process the consignment.

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