Emirates SkyCargo sees e-Freight climb above one million kilos a month

The carrier, which is an enthusiastic advocate of the IATA initiative and the world’s leading carrier of e-freight, achieved this landmark in just 19 months and is now seeing around 12 per cent of shipments from compliant airports being sent in this way.

E-freight aims to take the paper documentation out of air cargo and to replace it with the exchange of electronic data and messages. A single shipment can involve up to 30 paper documents, and e-freight currently replaces 20 of these with electronic messages. Before the advent of e-freight, the air cargo industry used the equivalent of 39 Boeing 747 freighters full of paper documents. In fact, were it not for various Customs authorities still requiring a physical document, all of Emirates SkyCargo’s transactions could be paperless thanks to its fully integrated air cargo management solution SkyChain.

Key e-freight stations for Emirates SkyCargo include Singapore, Zaragoza, Mauritius, London Heathrow, Hong Kong, Sydney, New York (JFK), Munich and the carrier’s hub – Dubai. Emirates Malta is working towards introducing e-freight in Malta by 2011.

Ram Menen, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President Cargo, says: “E-freight is the future of our industry, and one we are embracing. Its benefits are enormous, and we encourage our forwarding partners to adopt it.”

In November 2008, Emirates SkyCargo started sending e-freight shipments from five airports. Today there are 126 e-freight compliant airports worldwide, 38 of which are within Emirates’ global network. The carrier estimates that more than 50 of its airports will be handling e-freight by the end of 2010.