Need Help?
Fast, reliable perishable shipping is the backbone of the food and flower businesses. The improvements in perishable logistics means sensitive products like seafood or exotic houseplants are handled and transported appropriately to maintain shipment integrity.
Failures along the cold chain, which can be catastrophic for small businesses, are at times due to improper documentation, labeling or poor packaging. The PCR has all the up-to-date, best-practice and guidance information you need to develop loss-minimizing perishable shipping processes.
Need Help?
Order the PCR online
English, Spanish and French versions of the PCR are available in digital and print formats.
If you are new to the PCR, all versions are updated annually. The digital format comes with automatic updates for the year and a search function that makes finding current information easy. Plus, it's cheaper.
Contact us here if you're interested in an enterprise solution for accessing IATA manuals.
Contact us here if you'd like to order the 22nd edition of the PCR, effective until the end of 2023.
2024 Perishable Cargo Regulations (PCR)
2024 Perishable Cargo Regulations (PCR)
2024 Réglementation du transport du fret périssable (PCR)
2024 Réglementation du transport du fret périssable (PCR)
2024 Reglamentación para la Carga Perecedera (PCR)
2024 Reglamentación para la Carga Perecedera (PCR)
What’s inside the PCR?
- Applicability (simplifying business and contractual considerations, shipper and carrier responsibilities, special conditions, compliance)
- Government regulations (compliance, government regulations and laws, variations by country)
- Carrier regulations (variations by carrier)
- Perishable facts and types (types of perishables)
- Packaging (air shipment requirements, package categories)
- Perishables operations (quality and risk management, booking, acceptance, cargo and ground operations, delivery)
- Documentation and labelling (waybill, cargo handling codes, captain notification, marking, labelling)
- Traceability and tracking (general information, RFID)
- Claims (types, how to inspect, how to study, check list)
- CITES (guidelines for live plants, CITES parties, appendices, management authorities by country)
- Air transport of cut flowers (maintaining quality in ornamentals, factors affecting post-harvest quality, post-harvest management, quality control, air transport logistics)
Still not sure if the PCR is for you? Download the full table of contents:
Stay up-to-date
Significant Changes to the 23rd edition (2024) of the IATA Perishable Cargo Regulations (PCR) include:
Acknowledgments
- Membership of the Live Animals and Perishables Board (LAPB) and the Perishable Cargo Working Group (PCWG)
1 - Application of these Regulations
- Chapter 1 completely revised and streamlined
- Shipper and Operator Responsibilities (1.2, 1.3) revised to clarify compliance requirements
- Addition of a new section on Training (1.5)
2 - State Variations
- Deletion of section on Compliance
- Update of information on the People's Republic of China (2.1.5)
- Amendments to the State Variations of Vanuatu (2.2)
3 - Operator Variations
- Air Vanuatu - NF
- Avianca Cargo - AV
- DHL Air Limited - D0
- DHL Air Austria GmbH - Q7
- European Air Transport Leipzig GmbH - QY
- LATAM Cargo - UC
- Omar Air - WY
- Tampa Cargo - QT
- Uzbekistan Airways - HY
- Up to date State and Operator Variations ensure operators and shippers are able to manage perishable commodity transportation as efficiently as possible.
7 - Documentation and Labeling
- Clarified that operators can, if they so wish, print an optional temperature range field on the perishable label (7.7)
Appendix A
- Deletion of Appendix on Ventilation, Heating and Cooling Capability of Airbus and Boeing Aircraft
Glossary
- Revision to the definition of "Perishables"
Nomenclature
- New appendix on units of measurement, abbreviations, and conversion factors