China Southern Airlines, the newest member of SkyTeam and the largest airline in The People’s Republic of China announces the launch of its air cargo e-freight service. The first use of the new paperless system begins on China Southern flight CZ3603 from Guangzhou to Dalian, in partnership with two of the top 10 freight forwarders in Guangzhou, XinBang Logistics and SuiJia Logistics. Further expansion into other routes is planned and will involve more freight forwarders.

IATA e-freight is one of the five “Simplifying the Business” projects that are themed to improve service and cut costs while taking paper out of the air cargo supply chain.

Facilitated by IATA, the project is an industry-wide initiative involving carriers, freight forwarders, ground handlers, shippers and customs authorities. IATA e-freight effectively eliminates the need to send 20 paper documents with air cargo shipments, thus streamlining processes, improving speed and reliability and reducing losses as well.

It is estimated that the application of the new system will save RMB 1 Million for China Southern Airlines. The industry has set a deadline of the end of 2010 for the implementation of e-freight (where feasible).

“China Southern’s launch of e-freight initiative is another step toward a completely paperless environment, after the application of the electronic ticketing, bar coded boarding passes and customer use self service system,” said Mr.Hu Cheng Jie, Chief Information Officer of China Southern Airlines, adding that “the improvement in data quality and timeless information procession will lead to more efficiency in our air cargo business.”

He then emphasized that “in responding to the call of building a green and informationalized company, China Southern will continue to introduce international-standard technologies, making our products customer-friendly and cost-saving.”