IATA Prescribes Three-pronged Approach

Countering the gloomy future, the IATA chief outlined three priorities that would help air cargo to gain some growth: Modernisation, enforcing Global Standards and opening borders for trade. A report

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) called on governments and the air cargo industry to focus on three priorities to accommodate the expanding demand for air cargo and ensure the economic and social benefits of aviation can be maximised.

The three priorities are:

• Accelerating the speed of process modernisation;

• Implementing and enforcing global standards; and,

• Keeping borders open to trade. The call came during the opening address by

Alexandre de Juniac, IATA’s Director General and CEO, at the 13th World Cargo Symposium.

The operating environment for air cargo is increasingly challenging. Demand for air cargo grew by 3.5 per cent in 2018, a significant deceleration from 2017 which saw extraordinary growth of 9.7 per cent. Weakening global trade, sagging consumer confidence and geopolitical headwinds contributed to a general slowdown in demand growth commencing in mid-2018. And, January 2019 saw a year-on-year contraction of 1.8 per cent.

IATA also called for the modernisation of industry processes. This would be critical to efficiently meet the doubling of demand expected over the next two decades. And, it was already being called for by customers of the industry’s most promising growth markets: e-commerce and the transport of time-and temperature-sensitive goods such as pharmaceuticals and perishables.

Aligned with a resolution on modernising air cargo from the 2017 IATA Annual General Meeting, IATA called for faster progress on the digitisation of the supply chain and more effective use of data to drive improvements in operational quality. The industry’s digital vision was focused on four areas:

• Global implementation of the e-Air Waybill (e-AWB);

• Universal adoption of a common data language—Cargo XML standards;

• Smart data sharing; and,