The International Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations and the International Air Transport Association have come to an agreement on many of the principles that would go toward the creation of a new cargo agent modernization programme, but have yet to sign a comprehensive draft.

The main cause of disagreement between the two bodies relates to IATA’s Cargo Accounts Settlement System, which helps ensure that payment is received from an airline’s customers.

While IATA wants CASS to be included in the new programme, FIATA says that participation in CASS should not be a precondition of joining the modernization programme and should be an independent decision by each individual forwarder.

“FIATA is grateful to both the forwarder and airline representatives who volunteered their time and knowledge to bring forward a modernized cargo programme in the last three years,” said Rudi Sagel, chairman of FIATA’s Airfreight Institute. “We still believe that in the future a programme based on these main principles will become a reality, a programme based on the independence of each party in contract, allowing participants a reasonable freedom of choice on how they wish to handle their financial arrangements, either individually, bilaterally or multilaterally, a change that would bring IATA’s CASS up to a level that modern technology allows today and obviously was not available in the past.”

According to FIATA, it will continue the dialogue with IATA until both parties can come to a final agreement which best serves the interests of the industries they each represent.