keynote feature Effective training key to both safety and success
All parties involved with the movement of dangerous goods by air agree on one point – the key to ensuring safety is to have properly-trained staff in place all the way along the supply chain. That point was confirmed by Chris Gray, manager for UK training company TrainingTeam which offers UK Civil
Aviation Authority-approved courses designed to enable participants to obtain ‘Dangerous Goods by Air’ certificates. “People taking our courses are a complete mix of staff from shippers through to packing companies, forwarders,
carriers, handling agents and security screeners,” he explained. When it comes to securing a ‘Dangerous Goods by Air’ certificate, continued Gray, there are two angles to the
training. “The first is from a shipper’s perspective, the people who prepare the shipment and sign the shipper’s declaration which travels with it. People who complete one of our courses have the authority to sign such a document,” he said. “Then you have the operator’s perspective, the people who actually accept the shipment into their system. They will be much more tuned in to running through specific checklists covering all the details of the consignment.”
(better known to most in the international air cargo industry as ‘Bala’), manager cargo global operations services for Dubai-based carrier Emirates SkyCargo, current vice chairman of the IATA Dangerous Goods Board and advisor to the UAE government in relation to the ICAO Dangerous Goods Panel. “At the moment, the focus is on lithium batteries but in a
few years time, the big issue for the air cargo industry may be hydrogen fuel cells. There are still a lot of questions surrounding those – will they be commercially viable, will they be available in large numbers, will they be easy to carry, will they be safe to ship by air?” he commented.
and packaged in line with the relevant regulations. “It is already stated in the IATA DGR that the shipper is
responsible for the correct classification and packaging of dangerous goods but to date the regulatory authorities have typically focused more on ensuring that airlines comply with the rules. We believe there should be more emphasis on looking at safety throughout the supply chain and not leaving everything until the goods reach the airport,” stated Brennan. He confirmed that if such an approach was widely
implemented, manufacturers and shippers in China, like their counterparts elsewhere in the world, would in future be asked or required to take much greater responsibility for ensuring the accurate declaration of their dangerous goods shipments and making sure the packaging fully complied with international regulations. Asked whether that move could eventually
lead to the emergence of a dangerous goods sector version of the ‘known shipper’ concept already used for security purposes, Brennan agreed that if regulatory authorities went along with the idea, there are “possibilities” in that context.
RESPONSIBILITY Meanwhile, forwarders continue to play an important role in checking that shipper dangerous goods declarations are accurate before shipments
Meanwhile, other continuing issues for both regulators
and air cargo industry players when it comes to the transport of dangerous goods by air include the misdeclaration of shipment details, whether deliberately or accidentally; occasional conflict with security requirements; and problems in some parts of the world in actually sourcing the right type of packaging. On that first point, Brennan said both IATA and ICAO have
been looking at ways of trying to get all parties in the supply chain to take their share of responsibility for ensuring that dangerous goods are properly classified, similar to the way they are all now required to participate in security measures,
16 AIR LOGISTICSCHINA
reach carriers, a point highlighted by Pacer’s Gardner. “In the wake of 9/11, people, especially in the US, are more sensitive about the nature of cargo being put on aircraft. But there are always going to be people who innocently make a mistake, mainly because they are unaware of the requirements, and that is why it is important to have partners in the global supply chain who are aware of those things,” he said. Generally, though, airlines accept that they have to bear
the final responsibility for ensuring that cargo loaded on their aircraft is safe. In the case of Lufthansa Cargo, stated Brigitta Ebeling, the carrier’s senior product manager Care/td,
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