Consolidated Aviation Services’ (CAS), the largest cargo handler in North America, is to help 3,000 freight forwarders in the US to transition to electronic air waybill (e-AWB) processing with the launch of ePic Easy Export.

The new web-based tool, which is planned for Q4 2015, supports CAS’ commitment to a paperless air cargo environment in support of IATA’s e-freight programme. With over 3,000 freight forwarders already using CAS’ current ePic Online Customer Service Portal on a daily basis, the addition of ePic Easy Export will deliver the long-awaited community tool companies need to make an easy transition to e-AWB and eliminate the heavy dependency on paper documentation for the exchange of information.

Chuck Zhao, IT director at CAS is confident the latest offering from ePic can provide the impetus e-AWB needs in the US. “In the U.S there is no community tool that gives air cargo people an easy transition mechanism to e-AWB. ePic Easy Export will help small-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,” he said.

ePic is at the heart of CAS’ digital transformation strategy. Chuck Zhao adds: “E-freight is our vision, eCargo is our practice and e-AWB is an entrance point that heralds the opportunity for the entire air cargo community to push for a paradigm change. ePic is all about removing paperwork as the controlling factor in documentation and the warehouse space. ePic focuses on real-time cargo status. We believe e-freight won’t come to fruition unless the operational processes in the warehouse space are paper free and therefore provide 100 per cent 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 per cent visibility as data is lost in paperwork.”