Re: Jailed For Sending Chemicals!
epreye,
Yes, I did say draconian, and yes, I was shooting from the hip with the comment on jailing freight forwarders. I'm sure the CAA went through the entire history of this parcel quite thoroughly and nailed the right culprit. No FF is mentioned in the report.
It would be interesting to learn more about how the actual contents were discovered during transhipment at Dubai and how they got through screening in the UK. Nailing the culprit after the fact is not really good enough, no matter who was responsible for screening.
My comment re this being the tip of an iceberg comes from observing the rapid expansion of freight intermediaries in maritime transport. In my own geographical area FFs, NVOs and other intermediaries actually signing Bills of Lading have doubled their share of export cargoes in the last three years, to just under 30%. In Europe and the US that share is higher and there are new companies joining the fray every day. KN, Panalpina and the other majors may have effective training schemes and screening systems in place but too many of the newbies are pretty hopeless and would not know the difference between a Fiata guideline and a Fiat.
So, as far as FFs and other intermediaries are concerned, I know that an awful lot of unpleasant cargo is getting onto ships and I would wager a case of your favourite tipple the same is happening in air cargo.
At some stage there is going to have to be a crackdown on the intermediaries, and some form of tightening of screening that imposes, yes draconian, penalties on the screeners that let stuff through. Chemicals are a special nightmare; I just checked out the EINECS database, which "contains 100,204 chemical substances".
No I don't know what the solution is but I damn well do know there's a problem. At some stage soon I suspect that "as agent only" signature on the BL or AWB is going to be a lot more serious and binding than it is today.
Last edited by broadreach; 11th Jan 2006 at 06:55.