In Hong Kong, the enhancement of international standards on air cargo security announced by the International Civil Aviation Organisation, commenced on January 1 2020, with the fourth and final stage starting on March 1 2021, for which U-Freight is now fully prepared.
Simon Wong, UFL’s Chief Executive Officer said: "The final phase demands that all consignors of air cargo must be approved by the appropriate authority as a validated Known Consignor, with any consignee not validated becoming an unknown consignor, with all their cargo subject to 100% security screening prior to being loaded on to a commercial aircraft, to meet the ICAO deadline of 100% screening of non-known consignee cargo by June 30th 2021."
In Hong Kong, since January 2020, a transitional arrangement has been set up that has required the Regulated Air Cargo Screening Facility to gradually increase the percentage of air cargo being screened.
Over two years ago, the U-Freight Group installed an X-ray machine at its Golden Bear Industrial Centre in Hong Kong, giving staff adequate time to gain experience in the scanning process, as well as helping to identify prohibited or suspect products inside the ever-increasing number of e-commerce parcels it handles.
A second enhanced X-ray machine was installed in July 2019, which can scan consignments up to pallet size. The company modified its export operations warehouse to accommodate the existing X-ray machine, as well as the newly purchased example.