National carrier Royal Jordanian inaugurated the e-freight system, in collaboration with Champ Cargosystems (CHAMP), a global IT provider serving the air cargo industry.

The new system will enable cargo agents to conduct cargo bookings and create airway bills through system website, said the airline in its statement.

The e-freighting is one of the initiatives of  IATA's simplifying the business (StB) program launched a few years ago. It has become an industry-wide initiative involving carriers, freight forwarders, ground handlers, shippers and customs authorities. It aims to take the paper out of air cargo and replace it with electronic data and messages.

Muath Majali, the VP Cargo Sales and Services, said: "Royal Jordanian's cargo sector is the second fundamental arm of the company. RJ is eager to offer state-of-the-art services to its customers and agents in order to meet their demands and ease freighting services."

Majali said that in 2009, RJ started applying the best-in-class IT solution - Cargospot - to automate freight procedures, covering all aspects of air cargo sales, reservations, pricing, management information and cargo handling.

He pointed out that the e-freight system being implemented by RJ is a comprehensive Internet-based application that allows the carrier to safely and efficiently empower its freight customers to perform the most essential tasks for cargo booking and data capture.

According to Majali, the system is bound to increase the volume of cargo on the RJ aircraft.

"The 24-hour self-service application enables cargo agents anywhere in the world to look up flight schedules, check capacity, create real-time bookings and manage bookings completely unassisted," he explained.

The e-freight system connects directly with the electronic system that is applied at the Jordanian Customs Department and other concerned parties, thus easing and accelerating clearance of goods and delivery to the consignee.

Majali said that the new system is bound to benefit the Jordan cargo community, including shippers, freight forwarders, customs authority, ground handling agents, customer airlines and Royal Jordanian.

The airline's cargo route network has 10 destinations: London, Athens, Larnaca, Frankfurt and Algeria. RJ operates one regular weekly flight to each of the mentioned destinations, four weekly flights to Maastricht, two weekly flights to Tel Aviv, two weekly flights to Baghdad and runs charter flights to Erbil, Sulaymaniyah and other cities around the world.-TradeArabia News Service