As previously reported to members, the Australian Federation of International Forwarders (AFIF) and the Customs Brokers and Forwarders Council of Australia (CBFCA) have been involved in local working committees / executive steering groups in order to implement the International Air Transport Association (IATA) e-freight initiative in Australia.

In an IATA Press release issued 22 October 2008, Aleks Popovich, IATA's Global Head of Cargo said "The implementation of e-freight in Australia is another significant step in the global roll out of the programme. As part of the e-freight management group, AFIF, CBFCA and our other partners have played a key role in getting e-freight off the ground in Australia. We appreciate their support, and look forward to further partnership in growing the Australian air cargo industry".

As a result of these efforts, the first 'live' e-Freight consignments were successfully sent from Australia earlier this week.

AFIF and the CBFCA are committed to supporting the next steps of the implementation program which include :

• Finalising the e-Freight contingency plans
• Identifying ways of tracking and reporting e-Freight volumes
• Expanding the connection process on a Trans-Tasman basis to NZ

Importantly, IATA is also focussed on identifying strategies to increase the growth and penetration of the e-Freight initiative within Australia. AFIF and the CBFCA will keep members informed as to how they can participate in the e-Freight Program in due course.

In the interim, other pertinent excerpts of the IATA Press release issued 22 October 2008 are provided below :

IATA e-freight is "live" in Australia and New Zealand, the fifth and sixth new locations respectively to deliver paper free cargo in 2008.

The Australia e-freight became operational today on 3 trade lanes: Australia-Singapore, Australia-New Zealand and Australia-the Netherlands. QANTAS led the Australia IATA e-freight implementation. Also involved in the implementation were Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, British Airways, DHL Global Forwarding, Schenker, Fracht Australia, Australian Customs, and the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.

IATA e-freight is one of five "Simplifying the Business" projects being led by IATA to improve service and cut costs. It 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. IATA e-freight effectively eliminates the need to send 13 paper documents with air cargo shipments streamlining processes, improving speed and reliability and cutting costs.

Over the past year IATA has assessed the readiness of 209 locations worldwide in addition to the original 6 e-freight sites. Of these, 46 countries, representing approximately 60% of global air-freight volumes, have the appropriate international treaties and high level customs framework in place to qualify for IATA e-freight.