The CASS Import specifications include the forms required by the Settlement Office: Air Waybill Transmittal (AWT), Import Billing Instruction (IBI) and Import Adjustment Memorandum (IAM), each in turn with their respective procedural details. The Cargo Agency Conference Resolutions Manual stipulates the establishment of “…Local Customer Advisory Groups — Cargo (LCAGC) in countries wherever a CASS is in operation, to provide advice to ISS Management on local customer service issues and to co-ordinate.”
      So far, so good.
      “IATA Agents” face a take-it-or-leave-it situation when they elect to participate in the agency program.
Forwarders have been on record for years about what they perceive is a one-sided dictate embodied in these rules and regulations.
      The bone of contention, and there is more than one, is most vehement when it comes to money.
      Resolution 853 – “CARGO ACCOUNTS SETTLEMENT SYSTEM (CASS) — CHARGES COLLECTABLE AT DESTINATION” is replete with measures directed at potential misdeeds by the Agent.       For example:
       “15.4 Failure to Effect Timely Remittance”; “15.5(a) Dishonoured Cheque or Other Method of Payment”;
“15.6(a) Accumulated Notices of Irregularities”; Appendix ‘D’ – “Credit Protection Measures.”
      It may be expected that the other side can enjoy similar protection in an equitable system.
      Yet the resolution is absent any language concerning IATA and its settlement mechanisms making potential errors.
      The Agents have no recourse spelled out in the resolution – the funds will be debited, period.
      This is not a hypothetical discourse on the merits of obscure semantics buried in IATA resolutions.
      The case in point is a recent occurrence in the UK.
      IATA double billed Agents on CASS Import shipments it processed.
      As BIFA (British International Freight Association) confirmed, some of its members noticed the “error” before paying and managed to stop the second payment. Others didn’t.
      There is nothing in the resolution specifying timelines, terms and conditions for refunding amounts when CASS debits in error.
      Can you imagine that this causes concern - if that's the right word?
      IATA has been very adept at ensuring it is indemnified – when CASS makes a mistake, the airlines are on the hook, no matter what; pay first and try to argue later.
      The Clearing House rules ensure IATA access to signatory airline bank accounts, so it is always in the driver seat.
      This applies to the passenger side as well; you may recall the kerfuffle surrounding a 15 million USD equivalent which was mysteriously misappropriated at IATA’s Thai BSP (bank settlement plan) and clouded the 2010 IATA AGM.
      The airlines were expected to make up the losses.
      It is this kind of inequity and lack of mutual responsibility and consequences that contribute to giving IATA a less than flattering image.
      Its member airlines make mistakes, its accredited agents make mistakes and there are ironclad rules in place for that.
      The implied belief that IATA cannot and does not make mistakes and, therefore, there is not even a one-liner in place to address such a ‘remote’ eventuality in its regulations is both preposterous and demonstrates a degree of arrogance and self-importance beyond the pale.
      2011 will be a year of change; that much we know.
Ted Braun

Billion Dollar Baby Rising
As Shah Gets Upped

     Neel Shah has now been named Senior Vice President and Chief Cargo Officer, effective immediately at Delta Airlines Cargo. Neel will continue to report directly to Ed Bastian, President Delta Air Lines, who said Neel, “serving as the head of Delta Cargo, has continued to build a world-class cargo business that leverages the size and scope of Delta’s global network.
     “Neel joined Delta in January 2008 and has transformed Delta's cargo division into one of the world’s most extensive operations.
     “In his first six months, Neel drove the division to significantly improved revenue, despite record high fuel prices. That track record has continued, with Delta Cargo consistently exceeding its revenue targets and leading the industry in revenue and profitability performance.”
     Recently, Neel said he is targeting Delta Cargo to be a billion dollar business sooner rather than later.
    Apparently, he has the chops and the team to do just that.
Geoffrey

Cannot Deny Challenge Of Chennai

Artist's impression of what Chennai International Airport would look like once the major revamp and development work is completed.

     The coming year could prove to be a trying time for freight forwarders and air cargo stakeholders in the south Indian metropolis of Chennai. This at a time when the airport—under the management of the government-controlled Airports Authority of India (AAI)—has been doing well: it achieved 15 percent growth in imports and 35 percent growth in exports in the last 10 months. Also, the airport’s cargo facilities are getting a total makeover at a cost of US$3.22 million.
     The airport management has handed over the ground handling for cargo and passenger services to a new company, Delhi-based Bhadra International, which will start functioning from New Year’s Day 2011. Bhadra International was awarded the contract to do ground handling at Tiruchi, Cochin, Calicut, Thiruvananthapuram, Mangalore and Kolkata in addition to Chennai.
     While there is nothing wrong in Bhadra taking over ground handling, the cargo community is afraid of the delays. Simply put, the company has yet to bring in equipment and sign new contracts with airlines. For his part, the Chairman of Bhadra International, Prem Bajaj, has gone on record to say that the company was prepared to take over the ground handling works at the airport starting January 1. Most of the equipment is ready and the company’s officials had contacted the airlines to tie up the contracts.
     According to reliable sources, the AAI signed an agreement with Bhadra International towards the end of November 2010 and sent letters to all the concerned airlines to contact Bhadra International in order to finalize ground handling agreements. The letters also mentioned that Bhadra would be responsible for handling cargo terminal services.
     However, cargo movement at Chennai airport could face major problems since there is widespread opposition to the Bhadra takeover. Many of the air cargo stakeholders at Chennai that Air Cargo News FlyingTypers talked with, while unwilling to go on record, said that the move by the AAI to hand over ground handling to a private company should not have been done. The airport is being revamped and a state of the art Automatic Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), along with cargo facilities, will be up by March 2011. That would make the cargo facilities totally mechanized. Stakeholders wondered if there was any need to bring in a private company to do the job.
     In addition, they mentioned that any ground handler should have taken an interest well ahead of taking over actual operations. At Hyderabad airport, for example, the company that took over the ground handling brought in equipment and started training people at least a year ahead. That was not the case in Chennai.
     To top it all off, in the middle of December 2010, a public interest litigation was filed at the High Court in Chennai asking for an end to the license given to a consortium of Bhadra International and Novia International Consulting APS (also operating at Copenhagan Airport). The reason forwarded in the litigation says that the tendering process was flawed and that the tender “has been awarded to the consortium flouting all norms by playing fraud and misuse of power.” The fraud that the petition points at is the fact that Bhadra International is run by retired officials of the AAI. Apparently, the move to award the contract was taken by one of these officials just before he retired from the AAI.
     A bit of history on the ground handling policy: It has a checkered past. Every time the government has decided to introduce it, there has been opposition from almost all the private carriers. The government persisted and on February 1, 2007, the Indian Parliament approved the ground policy that will take effect on January 1, 2011. It will put an end to the ground handling by private airlines at the six metro airports: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
     Matters came to a head around the end of November 2010 when the private airlines that handle around 80 percent of India’s air passenger market woke up and took the matter to the Delhi High Court. In a petition directed against the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation, AAI, Delhi International Airport Ltd, Mumbai International Airport Ltd, GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd, Bangalore International Airport Ltd and the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs—later rejected by the Court—carriers pointed out that, when implemented, the policy would take ground handling at Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata airports from their hands into the hands of three agencies: Air India and its subsidiaries, the airport operator and a private player selected through competitive bidding. The petition also said that the move would result in 3,000 persons losing their jobs.
     The private airlines argued in the petition that “providing ground-handling service is a part of essential business activity of the airlines, hence the impugned circular violates the individual airlines’ fundamental right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation, trade or business.” The airlines also said that in airports around the world, airline operators provided ground handling “in both ramp and terminal side operations.”
     The ground handling policy will continue to make waves in the next few months. The cargo community will be keenly watching what happens at Chennai.
Tirthankar Ghosh/Flossie

At TIACA Up Close & Personal

India Flies First C130Js

     Close on the heels of the Indian government’s 10 C-17 Globemaster III deal with Boeing, ACNFT has received news that Lockheed Martin recently sent the first batch of six state-of-the-art C-130J military transport aircraft to the Indian Air Force. The Indian defense and military attaché, Brigadier Bhupesh Kumar Jain, and air attaché, Air Commodore J. S. Walia, received the aircraft at a ceremony in Marietta, Georgia.
     Signed in 2008 the deal was the first by India and is under a $1.2-billion sale by the U.S. Well known as the Super Hercules, the C -130Js have a longer fuselage. Able to carry 463 pallets, 97 medical litters, 24 CDS bundles, 128 combat troops and 92 paratroops, the planes have Infrared Detection Set (IDS) that enables them to do low-level flying, airdrops, and landing in total darkness. In addition, the Super Hercules has air-to-air receiver refueling capability for extended range operations.
     The addition of the new aircraft to the Indian Air Force will put India on par with nations like the U.S., Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, Norway and the UK, which have similar planes.

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