By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOT

Seamless electronic freight communication, or paperless airfreight known as e-freight, has come a long way since the International Air Transport Association (IATA) started to seriously promote it to the air cargo industry in 2005. This year, e-freight has made additional inroads thanks to Traxon Europe, an e-communications provider jointly owned by Air France-KLM and Lufthansa Cargo.

Traxon Europe strongly supports the IATA e-freight initiative for paperless airfreight handling that improves service and cuts costs by taking the paper out of the air cargo supply chain. Facilitated by IATA, efreight is an industry-wide initiative involving customs authorities, carriers, freight forwarders, ground handlers and shippers.

This year Traxon Europe has launched two new products to help streamline processes, and improve speed and reliability: eCargo Pouch and Traxon ACC Europe ICS.

TRAXON ACC Europe ICS
Introduced in April, Traxon ACC Europe ICC provides an easy way for airlines and airfreight forwarders to manage the Import Control System (ICS) and fulfill the new European Union requirements for advance manifesting of imports.

While most EU countries have implemented customs compliance regulations to standardize and automate their customs filings processes to create a paperless environment for customs and trade, on Jan. 1, 2011 the EU Customs Security Filing program will go live in all EU member states as well as in Norway and Switzerland.

This means that after January 1, economic operators will have to provide electronically and in time pre-arrival information for shipments to customs at the first point of entry into the EU. Apart from Entry Summary Declaration (ENS), Diversion Request and in some countries Arrival Notification will become mandatory.

'Our new product, Traxon ACC Europe ICS, provides a single gateway to all European customs authorities supporting electronic customs,' comments Felix Keck, managing director, Traxon Europe.

Essentially, Traxon ACC Europe ICS allows the automatic handling of all messages to and from local customs via one EDI interface using standard EDI messages.

Keck says the product is cost efficient since it doesn't require a massive investment or specific staff training.

'It's easy to maintain due to the single provider and gateway to serve all countries in the EU Security Zone,' he says. 'It reduces paperwork every day and saves time and money. And Traxon will make sure that regulation changes are automatically incorporated into the product.'

Traxon ACC Europe ICS is of particular interest to airlines and forwarders that import freight to a number of stations in different countries in the European Union. It covers all required messages such as the Entry Summary Declaration (ENS), the Arrival Notification and the Diversion Request. The user provides Traxon with FWB, FHL and FFM messages for shipments into the EU. Traxon then validates the information, translates and maps it according to local requirements.

When the declaration is completed it is sent to the relevant customs office. If required responses from customs are translated and sent back into the customer's in house IT system.

In April, Swiss WorldCargo has already signed an exclusive agreement to use Traxon Europe as CCS (cargo community system) for host-to-host (EDI) messaging. The agreement became effective May 1.

'The EDI messaging services are an integral part of our product offering,' says Oliver Evans, chief cargo officer of Swiss WorldCargo. 'Everyone profits from faster and more streamlined processes. By this we continue with our efforts to reduce paperwork which is also good for the environment.'

The contract gives Swiss WorldCargo access to the Traxon Europe network world-wide and covers e-Booking, air waybill data transfer, status information and consolidation list (FHL) transmission for customs. Accord