Air cargo/global logistics: Forwarders still coming to terms with security issues
Patrick Burnson -- Executive Editor -- Logistics Management, 2/12/2009
SAN FRANCISCO—The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has told air cargo shippers that 2009 will be a year of accountability, but many are questioning how the government will implement new security initiatives.
“We wholeheartedly embrace the cargo screening initiative, but we want to have it implemented in an organized and measure manner,” said Brandon Fried, president of theAir Forwarders Association in Washington, DC.
Other prominent forwarders, however, are saying that TSA—which announced that it would begin security certification process for targeted freight forwarders late last year—was not providing much compliance information to those not involved in the pilot programs. These programs were conducted only at the “mega” load centers in Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco.
“We have invited TSA officials to speak with us at WESCCON (Western Cargo Conference), but they declined,” said John Leitner, an executive with forwarder W.J. Byrnes & Co. in South San Francisco. “They said that they would only meet in a closed-door session, and we found that unacceptable.”
Meanwhile, spokesmen for TSA in Washington maintain that the agency is moving ahead with tests of high-tech systems designed to inspect cargo loaded aboard passenger airlines. The agency’s mandate is to screen at least half of all cargo by the first of this month. It will rise to 100 percent in August, 2010, as part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) mission to provide a level of security for cargo commensurate to that for passenger baggage. According to the TSA, these deadlines are congressionally imposed and not subject to change.
Security analysts point out, however, that while this is an achievable goal, not all shippers will be able to fully participate.
“The system, as it stands now, really favors the big global players,” said Albert Saphir, principal with ABS Consulting in Marietta, Ga. “And it leaves the guys who ship four or five times a day out of a place like Tampa out in the rain. An airport of that scale simply doesn’t have the money to purchase the equipment.”
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