Air cargo increase hits forwarder screening
Several freight forwarders participating in a voluntary program to screen air cargo on passenger planes are checking a smaller percentage of shipments because they are unable to keep up with rising volumes as the economy improves, a Transportation Security Administration official said Wednesday.
A number of certified forwarders, mostly larger logistics companies, helped airlines meet a statutory requirement one year ago to screen half of all cargo transported on passenger planes. But TSA and industry officials worry that many shippers and forwarders could experience significant airport delays when the screening requirement for cargo reaches 100 percent on Aug. 1 unless they sign up to self-screen their own shipments.
More than 400 indirect air carriers have been certified to screen customers' cargo upstream from the airport.
Forwarders in the Certified Cargo Screening Program that previously were inspecting more shipments than required say that they can't keep pace with the increased volumes and that the percentage of individual pieces in multipack shipments being screened by physical or technological means is dropping off, said Douglas Brittin, the TSA's air cargo programs manager, during a webinar hosted by the National Industrial Transportation League and the Express Logistics Association.
A 35 percent to 40 percent slide in air cargo traffic helped create the illusion that the 50-percent mandate was easy to achieve, but the early reaction from forwarders experiencing a nascent rebound in business is a harbinger of potential cargo gridlock if shippers let airlines take full responsibility for screening their goods, Brittin said.
When the 100 percent mandate was enacted in 2007 as part of the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act, passenger planes hauled about 1 million pieces of cargo, weighing 12 million pounds, per day.
The TSA created the Certified Cargo Screening Program as a way for shippers with time-sensitive, bulk, fragile or perishable goods to maintain shipment integrity and delivery schedules. Under the program, shippers with certified facilities can pack shipments in secure areas and affix labels, security tape and documentation to alert airline personnel that the shipment doesn't need to be rescreened. Forwarders can follow the same process, but first have to disassemble any pallets to screen each individual piece.
To read more about how shipper procrastination could lead to supply chain disruptions come August, read 'Collateral Damage?' (February American Shipper, pages 23-27). ' Eric Kulisch