Sadly, the recent upsurge has been insufficient in helping the industry reach IATA's goal of 45% penetration by the end of 2015; however, if implementation continues to grow at the same rate until the end of the year, it is estimated that the industry could reach 41.3% implementation, just 3.7% off IATA's aim.
IATA reported that e-AWB implementation was at 31.7% by the end of August, an increase of 2.7 percentage points compared to July, and had reached 34.1% by the end of September, a further increase of 2.3%.
In September, Panalpina gained the lead position on the list of top forwarders using e-AWB, breaking the halfway mark at 50.2% penetration – an increase of 1.9 percentage points from the previous month. Close behind, SDV Group is residing at 49.7% and Hellmann Worldwide Logistics follows, remaining steady at 49.4%.
Amongst carriers, Ethiopian Airlines showed the greatest increase in adoption of the e-AWB with an 8.5 percentage-point rise to 63.2% implementation. China Airlines boosted its penetration rate by 7.2 percentage points in September, reaching 45.3%, and additionally announced that it is "switching over to e-AWB (single process) as the preferred means for shipping cargo to all destinations," beginning at Amsterdam on January 1 2016 and at Frankfurt on February 1 2016.
