June 5 - The International Air Transport Association (IATA) has applauded the agreement between the European Commission (EC) and the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) to recognise each other's air cargo security programmes.
The agreement is the culmination of seven years of effort by regulators and industry stakeholders to achieve alignment of air cargo security measures and avoid redundancies and allocate screening resources most effectively.
"Air cargo is vital to the global economy. The US-EU Cargo Security Agreement marks a major step forward in one of the most important air cargo markets," said Tony Tyler, IATA director general and CEO.
The US-EU cargo security agreement means that the US recognises the equivalency and effectiveness of EU cargo security regimes as applied in all 27 EU countries and Switzerland.
This will allow all air carriers flying out of the EU and Switzerland to apply EU security measures as a means of complying with US law.
Similarly, the EU recognises the equivalence of the US air cargo security regime which will allow cargo flying from the US into the EU and Switzerland not to be subjected to additional EU security measures at US airports.
