ICS2 means that from March 2023 airlines will need to submit shipment information to a new centralised system named the Shared Trader Interface before the goods are loaded onto an aircraft.

Previously, the shipment information needed to be submitted electronically no later than four hours before arrival at the customs authority where the goods first reached the borders of the EU.

In another change, airlines can submit only the basic information and the forwarders and logistics providers can add the more sensitive details to the Shared Trader Interface at a later date.

This provides competitive protection for forwarders as they are not sharing customer details with the carriers.

Simon Lembke, director of customs and forwarding applications at Dakosy, said: “Freight forwarders and logistics providers no longer need to disclose the names of their customers and their related critical data to the shipping companies or airlines in the course of the procedure.”

Dakosy said that participants in the ICS process should prepare for the changeover in good time.

“It must be ensured that sufficiently precise data can be provided,” explained the software firm. “A standardised format called the Entry Summary Declaration (ENS) has been defined for ICS2, which does not permit any deviations.

“The required accuracy of the data is also becoming stricter, for example in the case of the HS code (Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System). Previously, either the goods description or at least four digits of the HS code  had to be provided for the entry summary declaration; in the future, all six digits of the HS code must be transmitted.”

Lembke added: “For our customers, which include many major airlines and shipping companies, we already work with this format. So for them, by and large, everything remains as it is, and we take care of the new reporting path and, if necessary, an adaptation of the interfaces.

“However, we recommend checking well in advance to find out the extent to which business processes need to be updated and employees need to be trained.”

Source: www.aircargonews.net

Image: www.pexels.com

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For more than a month, the Ukrainian army has been resisting Russian occupation in a bloody battle. Although the people of Ukraine and Russia suffer most directly from the war, the rest of the world has also indirectly fallen victim to Putin’s decisions. I have already explained the impact the war in Ukraine has had on the freight sector as a whole, but I would now like to highlight the ongoing air transport sector. It is currently suffering not only from soaring fuel prices, but also from a lack of capacity, which is also having an irreversible effect on consumer wallets around the world.

Capacity is affected not only by ban but also by destruction

In early March, two weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Northeast Asia-Europe’s transport capacity had fallen to 22% since the pre-war period. Now, almost a month later, it is even lower. The capacity of air carriers is most affected by the sanctions imposed on Russia. As a result, the delivery of goods to Europe is banned for the largest Russian cargo airline operator Volga-Dnepr, whose subsidiary AirBridgeCargo has more than 800 different cargo aircrafts. However, this is not the only aspect that affects the capacity of hauliers. Aircrafts destroyed as a result of war, which rubs salt into the wound of the industry, also play an important role. For example, in the battle against Hostomel Airport, the industry lost a historically unique specimen – the world’s largest cargo plane, the Mriya. Although the Ukrainian government has announced that every effort will be made to rebuild the plane, it will take time and at least $ 3 billion. It has also recently been confirmed that AN-26 and AN-74 aircrafts have been destroyed as a result of the Russian invasion.

To Asia around Russia

Due to the war, many air carriers have decided not to cross the airspace of Russia, Ukraine and also Belarus, citing the safety factor of employees as the main reason. This position has been publicly confirmed by industry giants such as UPS, DHL and FedEx, which own about 1,000 cargo planes. I believe that not only the issue of security, but also the image and political pressure of the company played a major role in making this decision. Now that most companies in various sectors are leaving Russian territory, thus clearly expressing their political position, the big logistics and freight companies must not lag behind either. It is clear to them, as to any other business expert, that the image of a company is easy to tarnish but hard to polish, and the smartest way to avoid becoming a black sheep right now is to turn your back on Russia.

Consumers become the victims

A series of all the above decisions and events will inevitably increase the costs for air cargo carriers, which will not only hurt market players but also consumers. There are already companies in the industry that are increasing the additional costs for international freight. One of them is FedEx, which took such a step in March. Although the company is one of the first to change its pricing policy as a result of events, it will certainly not be the last.

The most logical solution – more cargo planes

Once again, as in the Covid-19 outbreak, when the industry was struggling with a lack of capacity, the most effective solution is to transform passenger planes into freight transport. Such restructuring of airlines would significantly increase the capacity of air cargo carriers. Moreover, according to Insider, it is more profitable than buying new cargo planes. According to the media, such a move could save companies hundreds of millions of dollars. Airlines such as Qatar Airways and the Emirates Group, known to the general public as passenger airlines, took this step in early 2020. At the end of March, Alaska Airlines joined them, adapting five different passenger planes for cargo transportation.

Whatever the future decisions of air carriers, one thing is clear: only by working together in a crisis situation will it be possible to meet the needs of both the industry and the customer.

Author: Roland Peterson, logistics expert

Image: www.pexels.com

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Speaking at a press conference, Lufthansa Cargo chief executive Dorothea von Boxberg said this is because of restrictions for global fleets. Russian carriers are restricted by airspace sanctions by the European Union, UK and US, European carriers are not able to fly over Russia and Ukraine, while, Japanese carriers are flying around the Russian airspace and Middle Eastern airlines have seen no changes.

Two high profile airlines to be affected are Volga-Dnepr Group airlines, which are not able to operate flights to Europe and North America, and Narita-hubbed Nippon Cargo Airlines that has temporarily suspended flights to Europe.

Lufthansa Cargo also calculated a 10% capacity reduction for its freighter operations from Asia Pacific to the European Union.

She confirmed that the closure of Ukraine airspace and Russia’s decision to close airspace to airlines from 36 countries has impacted operations.

“That affects some of our most important routes into China, Japan and South Korea.”

These routes would usually cross Russian space, but now a route south of Russia and Ukraine is being taken that means flights take 1.5 to 2.5 hours longer than normal. However, as the average door-to-door time of a shipment is five to six days, this extra time won’t make much difference to shippers.

“It is more a question of the capacity that is missing than the time of getting it transported.”

Payload restrictions are also an issue.

“We’ve got the 777 which is a great aircraft, I think the only one that would do these distances and payloads without intermediate stops. But then it cannot carry the 100 tons anymore. That’s why altogether it means something like a 10% reduction in our available freight capacity.

“The capacity of course is still there but in terms of tonnage we can transport, it will about that less (-10%).

Source: www.aircargonews.net

Image:

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The Omicron virus may be less deadly than prior variants of the virus, but it is taking a heavy toll on businesses and their supply chains.

The air cargo sector is being hit particularly hard. Schedules are in disarray as flight crews are unavailable because of infection, a patchwork of national policies shuts down routes at short notice, and infections and quarantine measures are decimating ramp and warehouse crews, affecting the flow of cargo.

In probably the starkest example of the impact of Omicron, Cathay Pacific stopped longhaul freighter flights for seven days altogether.

It has since resumed all-cargo service to the Americas at a much reduced level, but management does not expect to be running freighters to Europe through March.

For forwarders, these developments have made finding and booking flights a time-consuming slalom through quicksand.

Like airlines, they have been stretched to the limits since the pandemic started and have little leeway to absorb further complications and hurdles.

In the face of the pandemic this industry has shown remarkable flexibility and an ability to re-think the business, coming up with new solutions that often involved collaboration with other parties, including competitors.

Operators have shared resources and facilities with their rivals to keep cargo flowing.

A second crucial part of the struggle has been the effort to streamline processes and automate repetitive, routine functions.

Most firms are understaffed and can ill afford to waste their precious human resource on activities that a computer can perform. And in the current chaos of schedules and pricing, they do not have the time for this either.

Start with bookings. Before Covid it made sense for forwarders to send out blast e-mails to multiple airlines requesting quotes for a shipment.

How many carriers have the time to respond to this today? There is no reason why pricing queries, and indeed the full booking process, should not be performed online.

Of course, this can only happen if the airlines do their part to make this avenue viable. Posting last month’s rates on their website is not adequate.

They must offer fully functioning booking capability with the latest schedule and price information – ideally through multiple channels, but at least on their websites.

Source: www.aircargonews.com

Image: www.pixibay.com

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The airline association said that in October cargo tonne kms increased by 9.4% compared with 2019 levels, but added that capacity could be affected by any government restrictions on travel in response to the new variant.

IATA director general Willie Walsh said: “October data reflected an overall positive outlook for air cargo. Supply chain congestion continued to push manufacturers towards the speed of air cargo.

“And capacity constraints were slowly resolving as more passenger travel meant more belly capacity for air cargo.

“The impact of government reactions to the Omicron variant is a concern. If it dampens travel demand, capacity issues will become more acute.

“After almost two years of Covid-19, governments have the experience and tools to make better data-driven decisions than the mostly knee-jerk reactions to restrict travel that we have seen to date.

“Restrictions will not stop the spread of Omicron. Along with urgently reversing these policy mistakes, the focus of governments should be squarely on ensuring the integrity of supply chains and increasing the distribution of vaccines.”

Countries around the world have introduced restrictions on travel from southern Africa as a result of the emergence of the new variant.

However, CLIVE Data Services managing director Niall van de Wouw said that so far this has not had a major impact on capacity as airlines had been flying passenger aircraft on cargo-only operations anyway.

Supply chain disruption continues to drive demand

IATA said that demand growth during October was in part fueled by ongoing supply chain disruption.

“Supply chain disruptions and the resulting delivery delays have led to long supplier delivery times,” the association said. “This typically results in manufacturers using air transport, which is quicker, to recover time lost during the production process.”

Cargo load factors for the month stood at 56.1%, which is a 8.5 percentage point increase compared with 2019 levels.

Looking at regional performance, Asia Pacific airlines saw cargo traffic in October increase by 3.6% on 2019.

“The improvement was partly driven by increased capacity on Europe-Asia routes as several important passenger routes reopened,” IATA said.

North American carriers saw cargo demand grow by 18.6% on two years ago with demand for faster shipping times and strong US retail sales are underpinning the North American performance.

European carriers noted a 9% increase in October as “manufacturing activity, orders and long supplier delivery times remain favorable to air cargo demand”.

Middle Eastern carriers registered a 9.4% increase, although this was a drop compared with the previous month due to a deterioration in traffic on several key routes such as Middle East-Asia, and Middle East-North America.

Latin America carriers reported a decline of 5.8% as capacity continued to come under pressure and African carriers continued their strong performance with a 25.9% increase.

The post IATA warns knee-jerk Omicron reaction could hit cargo capacity appeared first on Air Cargo News.

Source: www.aircargonews.net

Image: www.pexels.lv

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Skyport processes more than half of the cargo moving through Prague Airport (PRG), where it operates an 8,300-square-meter, semiautomated facility with a 100,000-tonne cargo capacity. The handler was acquired in April by airfreight infrastructure investment firm Ventus and Sky Logistica, providing new funding for additional technology developments. In addition to PRG, Skyport also has handling operations in Slovakia at Bratislava Airport (BTS) and Kosice (KSC).

Air Cargo World spoke with David Adamek, chief executive officer at Skyport, about changes in passenger and cargo operations, future goals and expansion, and how the handler has navigated labor challenges throughout the pandemic.

Air Cargo World: With the recent acquisition of Skyport by Ventus and Sky Logistica, what improvements are in the works? Do you expect to expand to any additional airports?

David Adamek: We have focused on digital initiatives that will help to improve processes and adapt to the present requirements from airline customers, in particular concentrating on artificial intelligence, the digitization of the physical space and blending with existing software systems. We have overhauled a very traditional industry and digitised the entire process of moving a box from A to Z, with the help of our unique software platform.

As Ventus, we have an in-house technology team, which is mostly based on artificial intelligence technologies, and Skyport continues to nurture relationships with technology partners, too.

As far as additional markets are concerned, we will focus on improving what we have rather than expanding.

ACW: Many cargo handlers have experienced problems around labor shortages and high turnover. What has Skyport done to avoid or address those issues?

DA: Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, Skyport has retained its entire team and we focused on training to provide the additional skills that were required in the crisis.

We were lucky to have a robust team and robust infrastructure that allowed us to adapt swiftly to coping with volatility in cargo flows, where we had to adapt almost daily to erratic flight schedules and ever-expanding trucking volumes.

ACW: Have you added any carriers this year apart from Finnair Cargo? Do you expect to do so in the next year?

DA: Winning Finnair was a great achievement for us. With its existing air cargo infrastructure, Prague (PRG) airport can handle in excess of 200,000 tonnes of cargo a year and we are available to support the airport in attracting more traffic that will help to maximize this capacity.

Currently, the airport is operating at around 50% capacity, but it is not actively promoted as a cargo-friendly hub. We would like to put Prague on the map as a cargo hub and we’re available to work with all the stakeholders to achieve this, and to bring in more contracts like Finnair.

Source: www.aircargoworld.com

Image: www.pexel.com

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The surface structure consisting of riblets measuring around 50 micrometers imitates the properties of sharkskin and therefore optimizes the aerodynamics on flow-related parts of the aircraft. This means that less fuel is needed overall.

For Lufthansa Cargo’s Boeing 777F freighters, Lufthansa Technik estimates a drag reduction of more than one percent.

For the entire fleet of ten aircraft, this translates to annual savings of around 3,700 tons of kerosene and just under 11,700 tons of CO₂ emissions, which is the equivalent of 48 individual freight flights from Frankfurt to Shanghai.

“Responsibility for the environment and society is a key strategic topic for us,” says Christina Foerster, member of the executive board of Deutsche Lufthansa AG with responsibility for sustainability.

“We have always played a leading role in introducing environmentally friendly technologies.

The new sharkskin technology for aircraft shows what strong and highly innovative partners can achieve collectively for the environment. This will help us to achieve our goal of climate neutrality by 2050.”

“The aviation industry is facing similar challenges to the chemical industry: ongoing progress must be made with climate protection despite high energy requirements.

“By collaborating closely and successfully combining our know-how in surface design and aerodynamics, we have now succeeded in taking a major step forward.

“This is an excellent example of sustainability in practice, achieved through partnership-based collaboration and innovative technologies,” says Dr. Markus Kamieth, member of the board of executive directors of BASF.

“We are proud that we will now be able to operate our entire freighter fleet even more efficiently in the future thanks to sharkskin technology and reduce the carbon footprint of our modern fleet further.

“The investments we have made in rolling out AeroSHARK at Lufthansa Cargo consciously reaffirm our commitment to the United Nation’s sustainable development goal on climate action,” explains Dorothea von Boxberg, chief executive officer of Lufthansa Cargo AG.

“We have always used our wealth of expertise as a global market leader in technical aircraft services to also contribute to reducing the ecological footprint of our industry.

“In doing so, we can leverage significant savings potential from all aircraft generations,” explains Dr. Johannes Bussmann, chief executive officer of Lufthansa Technik AG.

“I am therefore very proud that we will soon be able to transfer the positive findings of the validation phase into the series application with Lufthansa Cargo.

“The extremely constructive collaboration with BASF is also the best example of cross-sector cooperation in the interest of the sustainability of the aviation industry.”

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Under the partnership, AFKLMP Cargo will use SAF on selected international cargo flights carrying Koppert’s agricultural and horticultural products for biological pest control.

SAF is a jet fuel made from renewable sources such as cooking oil and a sustainable alternative to fossil fuel that reduces carbon emissions by a minimum of 75%.

Koppert and AFKLMP Cargo have been working together for almost 20 years and will be the first AFKLMP Cargo freight shipper to join the SAF programme.

The international biocontrol company is participating in AFKLMP Cargo’s SAF programme in an effort to reduce its transport-related carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Its live cargo of beneficial insects, fungi and other microbiological substances must be handled with special care so that they arrive at their international destinations in good health and can be used to control pests and diseases in food, floriculture and other crops around the world.

Koppert’s biocontrol products offer a sustainable alternative to chemicals in horticulture and agriculture.
“We have signed an agreement under which we will purchase a full year of sustainable aviation fuel, thereby reducing our carbon dioxide to a level comparable to emissions from our shipments flown by AFKLMP to our main market, the North American continent,” said Martijn van de Waarsenburg, corporate manager supply chain at Koppert.

GertJan Roelands, SVP sales & distribution for Air France KLM Martinair Cargo, added: “We are proud to partner with Koppert Biological Systems, a leading Dutch company that attaches great importance to sustainability. The SAF programme enables different stakeholders in the logistical airfreight industry to power a percentage of their flights with SAF.

“Customers determine their own level of engagement and we ensure that their entire investment is used for sourcing SAF. By participating in our programme, our customers not only reduce their carbon footprint, but confirm their commitment to leading the industry towards a more sustainable future. Only with the support of all stakeholders can we successfully develop a more viable market for SAF.”

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Martin Drew, senior vice president sales and cargo, Etihad Aviation Group, commented: “Now, more than ever, it is essential for the air cargo industry to accelerate its embrace of digital technologies, Etihad Cargo is carefully selecting partners to enhance customer experiences and streamline booking processes to provide additional convenience.

“Etihad Cargo’s previous API investments have resulted in the successful and seamless roll-out of integrated products with several digital booking platforms. The CargoWise partnership is anticipated to provide significant results through its extensive global customer base.”

Etihad Cargo’s flight schedule, rates, capacity and eBooking functions are now available to freight forwarders using CargoWise.

Scott McCorquodale, chief automation officer, Air Cargo at WiseTech, added: “We’re delighted to be partnering with Etihad Cargo to deliver these eBooking capabilities. This feature-rich integration will enable our CargoWise customers to seamlessly receive quotes, check capacity and immediately book their air cargo shipment.

“Most importantly, this can all be done from entirely within the CargoWise platform, providing efficiency and productivity benefits for the forwarder through data integration and improved visibility across their business. It truly is a win-win.”

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This provides critical agility as air cargo contends with unexpected shifts due to the global pandemic.As Christian Tesch, director airfreight carrier relations and procurement, Hellmann Worldwide Logistics, commented: “Live access to capacity and price supports our ongoing commitment to provide Hellmann customers with outstanding service. We’re delighted to see Turkish Cargo on WebCargo.”

Turkish Cargo will first roll out on WebCargo in Spain and India, and will be quickly followed by roll outs in several more countries. With the airline’s shift to global eBookings, more than 20% of global air cargo capacity will now be digitised, providing more than 2,000 WebCargo forwarders customers across over 10,000 global branches with instant access to capacity and pricing.

Turhan OZEN, chief cargo officer at Turkish Airlines, explained: “Effective leadership is required to handle the customers constantly diversifying demands accurately across the air cargo industry.

“As the air cargo brand with one of the widest networks in the world, we focus on digital solutions. We are pleased to partner with WebCargo to provide digital connectivity for our customers as part of our commitment to constant innovation in offering the best service possible.”

“In the past year, eBookings have increased tenfold on WebCargo, making it clear that the future of air cargo is digital” said Manel Galindo, chief executive officer, WebCargo. “We’re incredibly proud to partner with Turkish Cargo, one of the most impactful and influential global cargo airlines, to launch eBookings for forwarders around the world.”

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