HARALD Zielinski, global head of security and environment management for Lufthansa Cargo, has just finished collaborating with professors Elmar Giemulla and Bastian Rothe on a new guide to air cargo security.
To be published in June - so far only in German - and aimed at the non-specialist audience as well as at security professionals, the 750-word volume spends half of its time talking about the principles of air cargo security and the other half explaining the current regulations.
That the latter task takes over 300 pages tells you something about just how complicated air cargo security is these days. As Zielinski himself says, there are probably at least 120 different national regimes and many of the larger ones contain myriad complexities.
Take the ACC3 programme - the new EU rule that requires air carriers to be designated as an "air cargo or mail carrier operating into the Union from a third country airport" for each non-EU airport they fly from. This means that airlines will have to get all their handling and other partners at each airport validated by inspectors trained to EU standards by 1 July 2014.
Except that airlines who can prove they have a proper quality programme in place can get an exemption that allows them to only validate a certain percentage of their stations by that date, agreeing a roadmap for validating the rest over coming years.
And except that there is a (secret) "green list" of non-EU countries considered to have strong security regimes, for which ACC3 validation is not necessary. There is also a red list of countries where extra measures are required on top of validation. And other countries on neither list for whom the standard rules apply.
Read Peter Conway's full interview in Air Cargo News 5 May – Issue No.776
