CEVA Logistics, one of the leading supply chain companies in the world, has joined Cargo 2000 as an Associate Member to realize new opportunities for 'productivity gains, cost efficiencies and further quality improvements in customer service.' CEVA is one of the world's largest buyers of airline cargo capacity, transporting 400 million kilos of airfreight each year onboard more than 500 flights a day to over 100 countries. The company generates revenues of some '6.3 billion per annum and employs over 54,000 staff at more than 1,000 international locations.

Greg Weigel, Chief Operations Officer for CEVA Logistics, commented: 'CEVA employees put their best effort into maintaining a quality system to monitor shipment flow. We recognize that airlines participating in Cargo 2000 are willing to match that effort. The decision to join is based on our commitment to quality and operational excellence and we look forward to significant measurable results for our customers.'

Mick Fountain, Chairman of Cargo 2000, said: 'Our membership has been growing steadily over the past two years. We have been especially successful in attracting new airlines to join us but we have said on many occasions that we want additional participation in our program from other leading forwarders. CEVA's commitment to Cargo 2000 is another big boost to our program and we hope the company will be a strong force in our success. With ABX Logistics, Agility, DHL, Geodis, Hellmann, Kuehne + Nagel, Schenker, SDV, UTi and Yusen already working to Cargo 2000 standards, shippers all over the world can see that their major forwarding and logistics partners take the issue of quality improvement seriously.'

Cargo 2000 is a group of some 60 major airlines, freight forwarders, ground handlers, trucking companies and IT providers. Its members are implementing re-engineered air cargo transportation processes from shipper to consignee using Cargo's 2000's 'Master Operating Plan'. This sits at the heart of an industry-wide process control and reporting system that drives data management and corrective action systems. By more than halving the number of individual processes in the air cargo supply chain to just 19, Cargo 2000 is less labor intensive and improves the process for managing shipments in a paperless environment. It substantially reduces time spent managing irregularities, such as service failures, cuts the time required for manual track and trace procedures and leads to a reduction in service recovery costs.

The program is being implemented in three distinct phases. Phase 1 manages Airport to Airport movements - 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. Identified as a key pillar of IATA's e-Freight program and with its membership at an all-time high, Cargo 2000 publishes the quality standards of its airline and forwarder members each month on its website.

Cargo 2000's quality system is now measuring over 974,386 route maps per month (May 2008), a year-on-year increase of +438,223. In May, 113,692 lane segments were measured (+44,203) while under Phase 1, shipments measured during the month exceeded 132,500 (+10,990) and the number