Supply chain players in
Asia risk being late to meet the requirements of the EU’s new air
cargo security regime, which comes into force on July 1, according to
leading industry representatives.
Starting July 1, the EU’s new rules
require carriers transporting cargo or mail into the EU from a non-EU
airport to have their operations independently validated. Once validated,
carriers will be designated as 'Air Cargo or Mail Carriers operating into
the Union from a Third Country Airport', the so-called ACC3 standard.
Airlines without ACC3 validation before the end of June next year will
not be able to transport mail or cargo into the EU.
Forwarders, handling agents, and shippers
can also achieve validation to avoid 100 percent screening, but they too
have been slow to meet the new standards.
 “Most
carriers have not achieved the standard and that’s also true of
forwarders,” said Paul Tsui, chairman of the Hong Kong Association
of Freight Forwarding and Logistics and Managing Director of the Janel
Group.
“They are waiting until April and
I expect some will wait until the last minute. The most important message
is carriers must be ready so they can deliver and meet these requirements.
If they do nothing, then that will be troublesome. They need to do research
into how to comply with the new system and they need to do it soon.
“Some may think the deadline may move,
but there is no sign of a postponement; it’s July 1.”
Another issue for all supply chain operators is the number of validators
available to ensure compliance. So far only
two people residing in Asia including Tsui have qualified as validators.
Indeed, the list
of qualified validators globally includes only seven people not residing
in Europe, increasing the risk of a logjam due to the lack of validators
as the deadline approaches.
 Andrew
Herdman, director general of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines,
said it was in the interests of all stakeholders to meet the new standards.
“From a public and industry point of view, air cargo is extremely
secure,” he said. “That’s one of our sales points, the
reliability of supply chains.”
“Air cargo reform makes sense, but
ACC3 is causing some issues for non-European operators which need to meet
European standards. There is a shortage of qualified auditors, and there
are also different requirements for different countries, so it’s
a difficult challenge for the industry.
“There are also some concerns that
Europe is classifying countries as a risk, so it’s not down to the
airline or how safe and secure their operations are, but what country
they are in.”
Like IATA and TIACA, Herdman called for
global standards rather than national or regional regulation. “Of
course we’d prefer global standards. The U.S. is also pushing ahead
with rules on advance information on shipments,” he said. “It
is intelligent to target higher risk shipments rather than screen everything,
but there is a lack of uniformity in these standards.
“We don’t want European or U.S.
schemes, we want a global system to ensure the overall network is as robust
as possible, so in that sense we are supportive of ICAO’s [International
Civil Aviation Organization] efforts.”
SkyKing
To read Part I of this series click here. |
