e-Freight is an IATA initiative aimed at removing paper documents from the supply chain and replacing the same with digital information exchange.
As Thailand is a key country in terms of AWB volume (and hence a potential market for e-AWB ), the focus has been to implement e-AWB and later expand the technology adoption to include e-Freight compliance. Thailand air cargo community has had the opportunity to lead the e-Freight compliance movement in the region with prominent industry bodies like Thailand International Freight Forwarders Association (TIFFA EDI Services) driving the technology adoption.
Cargo agents in Thailand would manually submit a pouch with shipment information to the Ground Handling Agents, who in turn would enter Master and House Airway Bill data, submit e-Manifest to customs and submit FWB/FHL to Airlines. This process involved multiple levels of data entry, verification and paper handling efforts. Which was time-consuming, costly, prone to errors and non-compliant to regulation.
Using the ezyCompliance platform enabled by PING Knowledge-based Managed Logistics Services, agents can now directly submit information to airlines for MAWB and HAWB in conformance to IATA requirements. The platform is a single window system requiring one-time data entry that automatically transmits shipment information to multiple airlines. It is the only industry neutral platform which enables Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) exchange between agent/forwarder and carriers involving – cargo booking, air waybill, house manifest, dock booking requests, status updates, arrival notice, and delivery order.
This service helps forwarders comply with ENS/AMS filing and exchange EDI messages with airlines. With increased focus on EDI for Trade Facilitation, most companies have to either absorb or send shipment data digitally to other stakeholders in supply chain. PING’s Document to EDI Converter Service extracts data from documents like commercial invoices, packing list, Air Waybill, Bill of Lading and converts the same into EDI messages, which are auto-transmitted to airlines, shipping lines and other entities in the supply chain. This great innovation has increased the e-AWB adoption globally for TIFFA EDI’s customers. From handling a modest number of four transactions in July 2014, the platform went on to handle 5,434 transactions in December 2018.
“There has been a sharp increase in the total number of MAWB transactions to over 700% conducted on the ezyCompliance platform and a growth of 18 times in the customers handled between 2016 and 2018.” – Anusorn Lovichit, Managing Director, TIFFA EDI Services Co. Ltd.
