Brussels has become the first European airport to sign up to The International Air Cargo Association’s new Cargo Service Quality tool.

The online rating tool covers every aspect of air cargo processing, including physical and document handling, technology, facilities, regulators and general airport infrastructure, amongst other variables. The data collected by CSQ provides airports and cargo terminals with business insight to help identify areas of improvement and guide investment decisions.

“Besides creating transparency at handler level, you can also look at cross handling, and therefore airport processes, and identify what is good and where work needs to be done,” said Steven Polmans, head of cargo and logistics at Brussels Airport and vice chairman of TIACA. “It strengthens relations between an airport and the forwarder community and is a tool enabling all partners to improve the processes at an airport. At the same time, the tool can also be used to have detailed discussions with handling companies and look for improvement in a constructive way. It is not just about an evaluation or judgement, but creating transparency for further improvement. Our industry needs these kinds of global solutions and improvements and as a global industry representation, TIACA is perfectly placed to take the lead. Brussels is pleased to be once again supporting innovation and transparency to drive improvements in the supply chain and we will continue to do so.”

Performance assessment is undertaken by forwarders who rate handlers at the participating airport through a questionnaire developed by a TIACA taskforce.

“Through CSQ, the forwarder opinion counts,” said David Bellon, air freight product station director of DHL Global Forwarding (Belgium) and vice chairman of Air Cargo Belgium. “It is the voice of the customer and potentially a platform for discussion, which enhances the engagement of all stakeholders in the air cargo supply chain in Brussels to further improve, set standards, and be an example of the cargo community of the future.”

TIACA launched the CSQ last month after a pilot scheme involving 179 freight forwarders and 18 cargo terminal operators around the world, including India’s Delhi Indira Gandhi International Airport, AAICLAS Chennai Cargo Terminal, Indonesia’s PT Jasa Angkasa Semestra, Hong Kong’s Asia Airfreight Terminal and Singapore’s SATS Ltd.

Following completion of the pilot, Kenya Airports Authority pledged to fully adopt CSQ at all of the country’s airports by mid-2019, the first nationwide implementation of the assessment tool.