Kevin Jones, TransGlobal Airfreight Director and ex-Chairman of the Air Policy Committee at the British International Freight Association, says that this is a major development for paperless master- and house- AWBs. The company hopes to stop sending paper AWBs and go live with XML e-AWBs to IAG at the end of March 2015.
The main advantage of XML-based AWBs is that producing them is much less onerous than Cargo-IMP-based examples and they are far easier to alter. "With Cargo-IMP, if you get a zipcode wrong, you need a specialist to sort it out. XML is a much easier language to work with. My IT manager is quite elated – it means that he can work on the messaging himself," Jones explained. A move to XML would also bypass the problem of the many different versions of Cargo-IMP currently in the industry.
TransGlobal will also investigate setting up host-to-host XML communication with other major carriers.
Kevin Jones adds: "It requires a little more effort to set up, whereas if we could connect to CCS, we would just have to do it once." CCS would then take care of communicating with the airlines.
The end of the paper AWB is undoubtedly still several years away – IATA currently puts the percentage of e-AWBs at around 22% – but the move to XML standards will nevertheless enhance the process, especially as IAG Cargo is keen to encourage other agents to switch.
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TransGlobal fronts drive to end the paper AWB
According to IAG Cargo, (the freight division of British Airways and Iberia), TransGlobal is the first UK agent to send live AWB data messages, compliant with the new IATA Cargo XML standards.
