Cathay Pacific Cargo has become one of the first carriers to pioneer two new milestones in the Cargo iQ Master Operating Plan (MOP).

The new milestones, FOW (freight out of warehouse control) and FIW (freight into warehouse control), will bring more transparency to the overall shipment journey in the MOP and better measurement of ground-handling performance in the handover between the ramp operating handlers and the cargo terminal, and vice-versa, for imports and exports, at air waybill (AWB) level. The milestones are now operational at the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal in Hong Kong, with a view for roll-out across the network.

Cargo iQ is a not-for-profit membership group supported by IATA composed of major airlines, freight forwarders, ground handling agents, trucking companies and IT providers who work together to bring standardisation and transparency to the air cargo journey.

As part of that, the Cargo iQ MOP, which has been endorsed by IATA as a recommended industry practice, describes the standard end-to-end process of transporting air cargo from shipper to consignee. These two new messaging standards, FIW and FOW, in the end-to-end airfreight shipment journey bring the total number of milestones in the MOP to 20.

Cathay Pacific has had a seat on the Cargo iQ board and has been an active contributor to the working group since it was first established as Cargo 2000, 25 years ago. Today (August 16, 2022), Cathay’s GM Cargo Service Delivery Frosti Lau is on the Cargo iQ board and has helped shape the new developments. ’We are delighted to be an early adopter of these two new milestones because we are dedicated to enhancing the quality control on our handling processes with the accountable parties,’ he said. ‘That’s why we are working closely with our counterparts to launch these milestones so we can better monitor the performance of the handover of shipments between our ramp handling and cargo terminal subsidiaries at Hong Kong International Airport.’

These are the fully owned subsidiaries HAS (Hong Kong Airport Services), and CPSL (Cathay Pacific Services Ltd), which operates the Cathay Pacific Cargo Terminal.

‘Information visibility has become a prerequisite in air cargo,’ said CPSL Head of Quality Aldous Chung. ‘CPSL pursues continuous service enhancement and looks for ways to refine our procedures to enhance the reliability and efficiency of our operations. By implementing the FIW and FOW milestones, we are enhancing the transparency of terminal operations and this will allow us to better measure the performance for continuous improvement.’

Previously, the handover between the ramp and the warehouse needed users to compute the timings based on the ULD handover time taken from the raw data of the warehouse operating system. Now the same system can share that information at air waybill level for every flight. This system enhancement was deployed in May and the FIW and FOW messaging was activated at the start of July.

Cathay Pacific Cargo is now trialling these milestones in its own systems through an interface developed by Global Logistics System (HK) Co Ltd (GLSHK) with a view to using the additional visibility from these milestones to measure and enhance performance to deliver a better service to customers ultimately.