TSA: Shippers unprepared for screening deadline

TSA: Shippers unprepared for screening deadline    The Aug. 1 deadline to inspect all U.S. originating cargo traveling in the belly of passenger planes is 207 days away, but most shippers have taken few steps to avoid potential supply chain disruptions resulting from expected screening backlogs at major airports, according to homeland security and industry officials.
   Manufacturers, distributors and freight forwarders can mitigate the impact of Congress' 100 percent screening requirement by joining the Transportation Security Administration's Certified Cargo Screening Program. The program gives trusted shippers the ability to check their own shipments, or those of their customers, using explosives detection equipment or physical searches without having to be rechecked by airlines after tendering.
   The TSA touts the program as especially important to high volume shippers because the requirement that each individual box be examined means bulk configurations will have to be torn down by a logistics provider or airline. No systems exist to scan the entire load at once.
   As of Dec. 31, more than 120 shippers have been certified to screen their own cargo. Another 410 freight forwarder and 40 independent cargo screening facilities who meet TSA criteria are approved to deconsolidate and inspect each carton by physical or technical means, according to agency figures.
   'We don't think enough shippers have a plan' for dealing with the August screening deadline because many believe their freight forwarders will simply take care of all the arrangements, Douglas Brittin, the TSA's air cargo manager, said at a Dec. 14 summit in Washington to get the word out to industry stakeholders.
   'If it's unscreened, it's not going to fly. It might fly two hours later, six hours later, a day later. It depends on when the next flight is going there.'
   TSA officials warn that exporters at major gateway airports are at most risk of experiencing transport delays because airlines do not have enough capacity to screen the huge amounts of bulk cargo bound for widebody planes.

Fried

      'This could be another Y2K. But my hunch is from 25 years in the business, it's gonna be a real trifecta. So we're going to really need to have as many shippers as possible screening their freight to cut down on bottlenecks,' said Brandon Fried, executive director of the Airforwarders Association.
   As of February 2009, half of all cargo has to be screened. At least half of that amount moves on narrow-body planes and many of the shipments are single packages that are relatively easy to screen.
   TSA officials are urging shippers to talk to their indirect air carriers about how their cargo moves, what aircraft and airlines are used and whether the logistics provider is set up to do the screening itself.
   To learn more about CCSP, go to www.tsa.gov/ccsp. The CCSP program office can be reached at CCSP@dhs.gov. ' Eric Kulisch