Bottlenecks Top
India Agents Agenda

     As air cargo growth gathers momentum in India, stakeholders and industry experts want more action on the ground. The infrastructure at airports continues to create major bottlenecks for the movement of cargo. While this is one of the issues about which the Air Cargo Agents Association (ACAAI) will debate in its November convention in Bangalore (ACNFT reported about the meet sometime ago), questions are being asked as to why the specially constituted, aviation-related bodies have not been doing anything.
     In fact, in 2006, freight forwarders and airline representatives had approached the Ministry of Civil Aviation through the ACAAI to find out if anything could be done to enhance cargo facilities at airports in the country. A pro-active Civil Aviation Minister, Praful Patel, then set up a committee to look into the matter. Termed as the Civil Aviation Core Group (CACG), it had the Civil Aviation Minister as its chairman. Among the others in the group along with the Secretary of Civil Aviation (the top bureaucrat handling the Civil Aviation Ministry) were Air India, Jet Airways and other private operators, Customs, all the airport authorities of the country and the inter-ministerial group (IMG), which consists of top government departments like the finance ministry. ACAAI had been given a permanent invitee’s status.
     For the first two or three years, the group members met regularly, and various issues were sorted out through regular interaction. However, after the retirement of the then Civil Aviation Secretary, Ajay Prasad, the functioning of the group stopped. Today, the CACG exists, but only in the files. According to highly placed sources in the ministry, moves have been made to revive the group.
     Meanwhile, around six months ago, the Civil Aviation ministry instituted another committee. Known as the Forecasting Committee, its members comprise all stakeholders in the air cargo business. Among the other members are representatives from the Commerce Ministry and the IMG. This committee has been formed to enhance the growth of the air cargo industry in the future. According to sources in ACAAI, senior ACAAI members DHL’s Christoph Remund (left) and former President Deepak Dadlani (right) submitted a forecast for future requirements by the air cargo sector in respect to infrastructure and other facilities.      
     In fact, in private conversation with ACNFT, most members expressed the hope that positive action would emerge from the recommendations made in the few meetings that took place over the last few months.
     For its part, the Director General of Civil Aviation also set up an All India Committee on Air Transport Experts in July last year to bring quality and reliable forecasting of Air Traffic. It would also act as a ‘Think Tank’ for the country’s civil aviation industry. The establishment of this committee came as a follow-up to the recommendations of a regional workshop on Civil Aviation Statistics.
     The recommendation stated that an Air Traffic Experts Committee involving academics, professionals, practitioners, and government and regulatory bodies be formed to bring quality and reliable forecasting to support future air transport planning. The objective of the committee is to develop a model of forecasting air traffic in the country, both domestic and international, to support air navigation system planning. The committee, besides forecasting, is also entrusted to look into the growth trend of the industry compared with other regional corridors, bilateral agreements, and airport infrastructure capacity building.
Tirthankar Ghosh

De Maizière plays his security card

     The German government is urging the European Union to take critical steps for better securing future air freight transports. This past Monday November 8, Secretary of the Interior Thomas de Maizière presented Brussels a five-point catalogue that pleads for harsher control of cargo shipments.
     “We quickly need a binding EU decision, because playing this topic alone doesn’t make sense for any of the Union’s member states,” said de Maizière in response to increasing terrorist threats on civil aviation, especially cargo carriage.
     “It’s useless if one or two EU countries impose an air freight ban on some states and others don’t,” he said, warning of a security rift that could split up European politics and prevent unanimous decisions. Addressed by the media, de Maizère harshly criticized the current security regime in air freight, which he considers insufficient and inadequate to properly protect people and airplanes. He renewed his warnings that the U.S. and the EU are still the major targets of Islamic terrorists; therefore, every possible step must be taken to reduce that threat and secure the lives of people.
     His Brussels-submitted poison list demands the blacklisting of all airports suspected of allowing uncontrolled shipments that do not meet international standards, and are therefore considered insecure. Paragon is a March 2006 EU accord that banned almost a hundred insecure and technically ill-maintained African and Asian carriers from landing in one of the 27 European member states. Since then, this list has been updated a number of times.
     Now, a similar model could be applied to risky airports with little or no control of cargo. However, prior to the Monday meeting, Secretary of Interior de Maizière didn’t reveal any names to the media. The only exception he made was Sana’a in Yemen. At places like Sana’a, the German politician demanded that controls of each individual shipment should be conducted prior to a green light being given for loading onto an aircraft. The entire procedure has to be documented, confirmed by officials and submitted electronically to the authorities at destination countries or to places where the goods are scheduled for transfer. This has to be accomplished, at the latest, four hours prior to the arrival of the aircraft. In case of doubts or irregularities, packages should not be allowed aboard any plane flown into any of the EU member states or commuted at airports there. If already en route, the planes would not be allowed to enter European airspace. In addition, de Maizière recommended dragnet investigations “that will help us better detect ominous and hinky parcels or boxes among the thousands of normal daily shipments, right at the place where they originate.”
     He especially referred to the parcel containing a cartridge bomb for a Jewish synagogue that was supposed to be transported by integrator UPS from Yemen to Chicago, but was withheld and dismantled in the UK.
     Said de Maizière: “if a Jewish community in the U.S. is receiving a used photocopier coming from Yemen, everybody’s alarm bells along the entire supply chain must loudly ring.”
     Stricter controls will affect the air freight expenses for shippers and forwarders. “A well working security regime is of utmost value and costs a price,” de Maizière exclaimed while presenting his catalogue in Brussels.
Heiner Siegmund

Contact! Talk To Geoffrey

RE: EU Prix Fixed Carriers Fined

Dear Geoffrey,

     You need to bring out more strongly how forwarders were disadvantaged and relegated to collection agencies for airline surcharges without any reimbursement.
     We always suspected that something was going on but had no proof.
     Now with the EU and ongoing USA charges our worst suspicions seemed assured.

Name Witheld

RE: The Bomb Printer Cartridge
Hello Geoffrey,

     Last week our country averted what could have been a major disaster. Thanks to the good work and relationships with foreign intelligence officials, authorities were able to find explosive packages destined for synagogues in the United States from Yemen. It’s obvious now that the episode pinpointed a number of areas that need to be addressed in the continuing evolution of air cargo security.
     Several lawmakers in Washington have already joined the cause to require 100% screening of all boxes flown on cargo flights into the United States. Given that nearly _ of air cargo is moved on such flights, a physical screening system for them might not be feasible even within our country. There are just too many limitations in technology to perform the task and some nations simply cannot afford it.
     We need a comprehensive risk-based assessment program for securing cargo. It must be harmonized with other nations and must be holistic since cargo moves on both passenger and cargo planes. The U.S. should be a leader in working with international partners to develop this policy.
     Within the United States, there must be a substantial improvement in interagency cooperation with TSA and CBP, because the recent scare continues their work together. The “stove piping” needs to stop and information must be shared with other key agencies and departments, like State and Commerce.
     Now is the time for the U.S. to show other nations that including the supply chain in the solution is an effective and (now proven) answer to security. Our Certified Cargo Screening Program (CCSP) has brought shippers, passenger carriers and forwarders together and created dialogue that has been able to provide solutions in our country. We must encourage our neighbors to expand this approach internationally as well.
     Let’s not sell our international partners short. Most governments are working equally hard to secure air transportation. They may disagree with some of our methods here in the United States, but they are no less committed to the end result of complete security.
     We live security every day. We know what is involved and we know what is at stake. Multi-layered, risk based solutions make sense. Simplistic, feel-good solutions inevitably leave gaps in the safety net, which eventually may be exploited.
     We are 100 percent committed to safety, but that is the way in which percentage is appropriate in a discussion on air cargo security. Treating every package as if it has the same threat factor removes our best weapon in the war on terror—our intelligence gathering and application to real situations—and places it instead in machines and one-size-fits-all approaches that don’t fit air cargo or the global supply chain.

Brandon Fried
Executive Director
The Airforwarders Association

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