Paperless flight: Going paperless the e-freight way

Dubai: In a major milestone, Emirates SkyCargo recently flew its first paperless flight with all shipments being electronically processed.

Niranjan Navaratnarajah, Manager, Cargo Systems and E-freight, Emirates Skycargo, said the Boeing 777-300ER flight from Mauritius to Dubai was the first of a series of flights that will carry E-freight in the coming months.

Singapore, Hong Kong and Spain will be the next to go paperless on Emirates SkyCargo's global network, he said. "Our target is to achieve 8,000 shipments of e-freight in 2011," he said, noting that Emirates SkyCargo is on track to meet the 2014 target of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), which aims to eliminate all paper airway bills and other documents to speed up delivery and contain costs.

Cost savings

He said the current flow of goods is impacted when the physical shipment arrives but the paper documents don't. Hence, operational staff spend considerable time sourcing, sorting and getting the right documents to process freight, even though data is available in electronic form.

This contributes to delays in processing freight and adds to costs, he said, noting that costs are further increased by filing post-operation documents in storage facilities.

However, with E-freight, more than 50 per cent of the time might be saved, he said. "IATA estimates a total cost savings of $5 billion (Dh18.36 billion) a year," he added. "E-freight is also environmentally friendly," he said, adding that with no paper, the aircraft load is reduced, thereby cutting down on fuel consumption.

In terms of security, he said, "E-freight will support security needs, whereby information is positioned well in advance of the physical goods' arrival to take necessary precautionary or preventive action."

Pointing to the challenges in the transition to E-freight, he said some regimes still think paper is the way forward. It is also highly resource-intensive to educate people on the merits of E-freight, he said.

But just as e-tickets have come to be accepted on the passenger side, it is only a matter of time before E-freight will be accepted on the cargo front, he said.

The shipments covered by E-freight would comprise a wide range of material from courier consignments to garments, computer hardware, auto parts, fruits and vegetables, he said.