“Breakthroughs in air cargo quality assessment will help cargo users better select the best suppliers”, said ESC Chairman Denis Choumert earlier this month. 

This month, the International Air Cargo Association (TIACA) launched its Cargo Service Quality (CSQ) initiative at its executive summit in Miami. This CSQ programme is supposed to give an overall assessment of all service providers in a given airport location. Thus, shippers, freight forwarders, and airlines will be able to evaluate the given services, their strengths and weaknesses. For shippers, who do not always know in detail what went wrong with their shipment, the CSQ programme would allow to find alternate routes.

Among other issues, TIACA summit focused on Cargo iQ. Cargo iQ is an IATA interest group with the mission of creating and implementing quality standards for the worldwide air cargo industry. Shippers and service providers have been working together on the development of key performance indicators. Reliability, punctuality, and sharing of information would benefit both sides.

While attending TIACA Summit as a Board Member, Denis Choumert stressed that this event paved the way to more input from shippers in the evolution of the air cargo system. This is demonstrated by shippers’ participation in the new roadmap of the Global Air Cargo Advisory Group (GACAG), shippers’ cooperation with Cargo iQ, and their leading role in the data backbone related projects such as the Trade & Cargo Facilitation Association (TCF).