Handler CAS helps forwarders go ‘e’

North America’s largest cargo handler, Consolidated Aviation Services’ (CAS), has launched a web-based tool to help freight forwarders move to the electronic air waybill (e-AWB).
The tool, ePic Easy Export, is aimed at small and medium-sized forwarders and supports CAS’ commitment to a paperless air cargo environment in line with IATA’s e-freight program. It will help eliminate the heavy dependency on paper documentation for the exchange of information. Currently, each international airfreight shipment can require more than 30 different paper documents, says CAS.
Over 3,000 freight forwarders already use CAS’ current ePic Online Customer Service Portal every day. CAS IT director, Chuck Zhao explained:  “In the US there is no community tool that gives air cargo people an easy transition mechanism to e-AWB…ePic Easy Export will help small to medium sized freight forwarders to transmit FWB and FHL messages and create an environment where creating an e-AWB is quick and easy. Working alongside airlines that share our commitment to e-AWB acceleration, we will use this simple new ePic tool to progress this campaign with the freight forwarding industry. We already have over 3,000 forwarders using the ePic online portal and ePic Easy Export will be made available to all of them.”
Zhao added that ePic is at the heart of CAS’ digital transformation strategy, describing the e-AWB as “an entrance point that heralds the opportunity for the entire air cargo community to push for a paradigm change” and “removing paperwork as the controlling factor in documentation and the warehouse space.”
Moreover, ePic will focus on real-time cargo status, said Zhao: “We believe e-freight won’t come to fruition unless the operational processes in the warehouse space are paper free and therefore provide 100% visibility to all the stakeholders – shippers, freight forwarders, customs brokers, trucking companies and so on. With ePic, data is captured once and is available to all whereas a paper-driven operation will never provide 100% visibility as data is lost in paperwork.”