Paperless air freighting for New Zealand

MEDIA RELEASE – for immediate release

2 July 2008

Paperless air freighting for New Zealand

Willie van Heusden, President of the Customs Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association, has welcomed the announcement that New Zealand will adopt paperless air freighting by 2009.

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) announced this week that New Zealand is among 11 new locations identified as ready for its e-freight programme following stringent assessments.

Mr van Heusden said: “New Zealand’s freight industry has made great efforts to ensure it was prepared to become an early adopter of the IATA e-Freight initiative.

“This will support the drive to improve sustainability in the supply chain as well as enhancing efficiency, reliability and speed and lifting productivity without adding cost to the supply chain.”

The move follows the successful implementation of e-freight in Canada, Sweden, UK, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Netherlands in 2007. Germany, Mauritius and South Korea have launched projects which will go live this year.

The 11 new locations are New Zealand, Australia, the USA, Dubai, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Switzerland, Iceland, Denmark and Norway. Five will be selected to launch e-freight in 2008. The rest will be targeted for launch in 2009.

IATA’s e-freight drive, to eliminate the production and transport of paper documents or air cargo shipments, will be a major development internationally. Combined, documents used annually could fill 39 Boeing 747 cargo freighters.

The target is to implement e-freight across the board internationally by 2010 and it is projected to save the industry an estimated US $1.2 billion annually.

IATA e-freight requires that business, technical and legal frameworks are in place to allow airlines, freight forwarders, customs administrations and governments to seamlessly exchange electronic information and e-documents instead of paper.

Teams of experts from participating airlines, freight forwarders, shippers and customs organisations in each location will now create local implementation teams. Their efforts will be supported and guided by IATA standards, e-freight operating processes and one-time data entry.

ENDS

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