Air Freight Security a Major and Evolving Issue for the Cargo Community

US – WORLDWIDE – Members of the International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) are being encouraged to attend the advance data workshop at Air Cargo Forum 2014 to be held in South Korea in early October. The request has been reinforced by the British International Freight Association (BIFA) and principally concerns one of the current topics key to the air freight industry, that of cargo security.

At a recent meeting in Washington DC TIACA officials met with Transportation Security Administration (TSA) representatives together with other stakeholders including XLA, the Airforwarders Association (AfA) and the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America (NCBFFA) in a follow up to the joint industry letter put before the TSA in May of this year.

The industry representatives pointed out their concerns about the Air Cargo Advance Screening (ACAS) pilot, including the need to pilot all targeting rule sets before incorporating them into ACAS; variances among US trading partners in screening procedures (most notably, differences in who can screen and how to screen); operational procedures for forwarders’ screening of targeted shipments into the United States; and the potential impact on US export shipments when other regimes such as PRECISE (EU) and PACT (Canada) become a requirement.

The potential pitfalls of the new systems are, thankfully, apparent to all concerned and therefore there is an acknowledgement from each that many questions remain unanswered and many more are likely to arise as things progress, hence the request from TIACA that members become fully involved in the forthcoming forum to ensure all are conversant with the up to date situation.

Photo: An image from American Science and Engineering’s (AS&E) Backscatter technology.