Amazon fined £65k for shiping dangerous goods by air.
 

An all too rare prosecution. Should be many more of these.

Amazon fined £65k for attempting to ship dangerous goods by air | Metro News

About time too. My business now is fireworks and I have difficulty in getting items transported by road. I have reported cases where individuals have been ordering illegal fireworks from Europe, in particular Spain and France, and these have been delivered to the UK in "brown boxes" on commercial flights.

One of the boxes I saw (and reported) was flown into Birmingham and the net explosive content was in excess of 5kg of Hazard Type 1 product!

... Again. The FAA has fined them as well.

This isn't exactly rocket science some goods must never be transported on passenger aircraft, others never by air. Put that into the bleeding computers. If you can make recommendations to me, ad naseusm, you can do this.

I suspect they eat these fines with an evil grin on their faces, knowing that not every shipment can be checked. Well, maybe they should be.

My business is selling camcorders. I am allowed to ship, by air, a camcorder with the Li-Ion battery installed and also include up to two, new in packaging, extra batteries in the same box. I used to sell batteries on their own but I am no longer allowed to ship them by air. This has always seemed a little strange, to me.
Li-Ion batteries, on their own, seem to come in by air in their hundreds, from the Far East, and are then delivered by Royal Mail with no questions asked.

As far as the Li-ion battery in the case was concerned, it seems Amazon didn't exactly "try to ship it by air", they sent it by Royal Mail. It would have gone by road to most addresses on the British mainland, but because it was destined for Jersey, it would have gone by air if Royal Mail hadn't screened it out. Amazon contravened Royal Mail rules because RM prohibits Li-ion batteries shipped by themselves – but RM does allow a battery "sent with or contained in/connected to an electronic device". So it seems that, instead of sending the battery by itself, Amazon should have sent it with a device, and asked the customer to keep the battery and send the device back. That would have been within the rules, and probably cheaper than special shipment – but would it been any safer?

I have done that, on rare occasions; when someone wants a valuable battery, I've sent it attached to an old non-valuable camera and told the customer to throw the camera away.

Could a moderator please correct the typo in the title for me?

I think RM still send a lot by air, either dedicated mail flights (Titan Airways a/c?) or as cargo on commercial flights. Probably depends not only on how far it is going (e.g. Scotland) but also how fast it has to get there (e.g. overnight vs. second class). Conversely, stuff for Jersey doesn't have to go by air - plenty of ferries - but maybe this did to get there in the time Amazon specified.

They send loads by air, mostly by West Atlantic titan and Jet2

We know what you meant. :O

£65k? They probably lose more than that per day in lost parcels. It's like a mosquito biting an elephant. £65m would still be lenient for a company of that wealth. £650m would have perhaps been a sensible number to make them reflect on following the law.

I thought that about the amount. Similar impact as someone dropping a penny down a sewer once in their whole lifetime...

This would seem logical, but in practice, because RM have fixed contracts for flights, if they have a 10t aircraft going and only 7t of express mail that night, they will drop in 3t of second class etc; likely saves some road haulage cost. This is one of the causes of seemingly random delivery dates, with items sometimes appearing to have overtaken others posted earlier.

LI-ion batteries are dangerous goods. Just ask UPS and Asiana pilots. They must be declared. No ifs, ands or buts.

But that's the point: there are ifs, ands and buts.

99% or more of people boarding a plane – pax and crew – are carrying at least one Li-ion battery, installed in phone and/or other device, in pocket/handbag or in hand baggage; sometimes people may carry a separate charged laptop battery too – I used to do that sometimes on long-haul flights if I had a lot of work to do. There was no requirement to declare the battery involved in yesterday's incident (Incident: Indigo A320 near Chennai on Sep 23rd 2016, Galaxy 2 smoke).

And, as mentioned above, single Li-ion batteries are still permitted to be shipped, undeclared, in defined circumstances. In both the UPS (2010) and Asiana (2011) incidents, multiple lithium batteries were being shipped in bulk.

Old lurker, you may have valid points. Perhaps the regulations need looking at. But DGRs are not optional, shippers do not have the right to pick and choose which ones they will apply.

DG Regulations do difffer between carriage of Li-Ion as cargo and as carry on luggage. The latter is - more or less - supervised whereas the former is free to smolder and melt in the depths of the cargo hold...

IATA 1st April 2016 update
 

I just had a message from ebay Global Shipping Program that a packet to Switzerland was being delayed due to possible prohibited goods being suspected. On viewing the IATA update I found that:

'Changes to the Provisions for Lithium Batteries
Effective 1 April 2016
1. UN 3480, PI 965, Section IA and IB. Lithium ion cells and batteries must be offered for
transport at a state of charge (SoC) not exceeding 30% of their rated design capacity.
Cells and/or batteries at a SoC of greater than 30% may only be shipped with the
approval of the State of Origin and the State of the Operator under the written
conditions established by those authorities.
UN 3480, PI 965, Section IA and IB are forbidden for carriage on passenger aircraft. All
packages must bear the Cargo Aircraft Only label in addition to the other marks and
labels required by the Regulations.'

I don't know if this is going to turn out to be the reason for my delay but I was not aware of this change, which seems to be that Li-Ion batteries are normally only permitted in a state of low charge. I wonder how many other ebay shippers are aware of this?

nevillestyke - I would hope they all are. This change took effect almost a year ago, and was notified months before.

Forgive me for repeating: LI-ion batteries are dangerous goods. Just ask UPS and Asiana pilots.

Instead of fining them just stop them shipping by air for a few days............... that would get a LOT more attention inthe company