Cargo 2000's program to improve the quality of air cargo achieved an important milestone in June 2008 when it measured the quality of more than one million individual route maps for the first time.

Now with over 60 of the air cargo industry's leading airlines, freight forwarders, ground handlers, trucking companies and IT providers as members, Cargo 2000 is implementing a re-engineered transportation process from shipper to consignee that has more than halved the number of individual processes that need to take place within the air cargo supply chain.

The quality program is being implemented in three distinct phases. Phase 1 for Airport to Airport movements manages shipment planning & tracking at Master air waybill level. Once a booking is made, a plan is automatically created with a series of checkpoints against which the transportation of every air cargo shipment is managed and measured. This enables the system to alert Cargo 2000 members to any exceptions to the plan, allowing them to respond pro-actively to fulfill their customers' expectations. Phase 2 is responsible for shipment planning and tracking at House air waybill level and provides interactive monitoring of the door-to-door movement while the third phase manages shipment planning and tracking at individual piece level plus document tracking.

Cargo 2000 first published performance data in May 2005. At that time, it measured 148,795 route maps. In June 2008, it measured 1,046,605 route maps systemwide ' 506,519 more than the same month a year ago and 72,000 more than May 2008.

Mick Fountain, Chairman of Cargo 2000, said: 'Cargo 2000 has gained tremendous traction over the last 12 months and is now one of the cornerstones of the global IATA e-freight agenda. We had aspired to a goal of one million route maps by the end of 2008 and we are there six months early. We are now beginning to see the benefit Cargo 2000 delivers in terms of service improvements, reduced costs and increased customer satisfaction and this is also being reflected in the growth in our membership from air cargo companies of all sizes.'

Cargo 2000's performance data for June 2008 shows improvements across all of its key measurement milestones. The number of worldwide lane segments measured rose 55,509 year-on-year to 124,364. Under Phase 1, shipments measured during the month rose 22,424 to nearly 139,000 and the number of lane segments measured grew by 4,724 to 28,704. Flown-as-planned performance to Cargo 2000's quality standard rose three percent year-on-year to 89% while FWB Correct ' measuring booking quality level and accuracy of data ' was 2% higher at 92%. The measurement for on-time notification of freight and documents availability was 86% (+12%).