During a recent airline audit in North America, I asked why all the shippers and freight forwarders are still sending paper copies of the Dangerous Goods Declaration. I was surprised to hear that some customers do send electronic Dangerous Goods Declarations (eDGD), but that many parts of the supply chain, including Ground Handling Agents, still INSIST on having a physical copy and will print copies of the eDGD when they receive the shipments.
What do we need to do to change?
The messaging standard for the eDGD was finalised in 2018, and the World’s first dangerous goods shipment with an eDGD was shipped by Abbot Diagnostics from Frankfurt Airport to Mexico City on a Lufthansa Cargo flight September 13th 2018.
During my time as the Dangerous Goods Standards Manager at IATA in Geneva, I had the honour of participating in the development of the messaging standard for the eDGD with a dedicated team of experts from Luftahnsa Cargo, Â Air France Martinair, KLM Cargo, Swiss Cargo and CargoLogic. The IATA eDGD Standard and implementation guide is freely available to industry. An Aircargo News article from the IATA WCS 2019 in Singapore highlights a panel discussion I moderated to discuss the benefits of the eDGD (Image Licensed by DVV Media). The message seems to have fallen on deaf ears.
https://lnkd.in/e59eEBDT
Creating dangerous goods documents using digital systems helps improve compliance and reduces errors and rejections, therefore reducing shipment delays and unnecessary additional recheck fees. The eDGD can also message directly into the IATA Dangerous Goods Autocheck system, making the whole end to end supply chain process much more efficient.
Maybe we can learn a lesson from how airlines deal with passenger boarding passes. Many airlines charge a fee to print a boarding pass at the airport. From November 12th 2025, Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, switched to fully digital boarding passes, meaning passengers can’t use boarding passes printed at home.
Just over 7 years since the 1st eDGD shipment and over 95% of all dangerous goods shipments by air Globally are still shipped using paper copies of the DGD. This is such a missed opportunity and very frustrating, having seen all the work behind the scenes to enable the eDGD.
DHL, FedEx, UPS, DSV, Khehne & Nagel, Expeditors, DNATA, WFS, Swissport, etc and all the airlines around the world – What are you waiting for? 
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To celebrate being awarded the IATA Competency Training & Assessment Centre accreditation, we are offering a 10% discount off all our dangerous goods by air training courses.
