The e-freight program has set the foundation for the digitalization of the Air Cargo industry and the e-AWB is now used for more than 2 out of 3 shipments. This is a signal that the industry is ready to take digitalization to the next level and go beyond EDI and messaging technologies.

ONE Record is a standard for data sharing and creates a single record view of the shipment. This standard defines a common data model for the data that is shared via standardized and secured web API.

The standard is based on mature but progressive data sharing technologies that are well aligned with the best practices used by leading airlines. This makes it directly accessible to IT teams and service providers.

The objective of ONE Record is to address the main challenges of e-freight and unlock the possibilities of a full digital air cargo industry and create opportunities for new value-added services and business models.

It brings the following benefits to the industry:

ONE Record is an openly accessible standard and the following documentation and resources are available.

Standards are a powerful approach to bringing stakeholders and systems together and lead digitalization of air cargo. ONE Record pursues a vision of the Internet of Logistics, i.e. a digital global network of logistics and transport providers.

The development of ONE Record started in November 2017 in Amsterdam where IATA invited 40 participants from around the world to lay the foundation for a data sharing concept for air cargo. During this transformational event, the participants sketched out the key elements of ONE Record. 

Following this meeting and the ONE Record development was formally established through the Cargo Services Conference (CSC) and the Cargo Operations and Technology Board (COTB) who established the ONE Record Task Force (ORTF) in June 2018. 

This ONE Record Task Force was mandated to develop the specifications of the ONE Record standard which was formally issued as a Recommended Practice for the air cargo industry in March 2019 by the Cargo Services Conference at its annual meeting in Singapore, March 2019.

The ONE Record standard includes:

The current specifications are available on GitHub.

Following cooperation with the Digital Transport and Logistics Forum of the European Union, IATA has co-founded a consortium named “FEDeRATED” with the transport ministries of EU member states Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Finland, Italy and Luxemburg to develop ONE Record compatible multimodal data sharing recommendations.  This is support for the EU Connecting Europe facility.

ONE Record is primarily a technology focused standard and where possible, we will provide tools to support the development and implementation of ONE Record. This includes the core technology such as a ONE Record server but also supporting tools for data model development and useful software modules.

This was developed for the purpose of a ONE Record hackathon and is maintained to be aligned with the latest API. This is a great tool for testing the API directly.

The source code for the reference implementation is available for open use. It includes deployment instructions and can be normally deployed in a couple of hour by an IT developer. 

In April 2019, IATA and the industry launched 6 pilots to test ONE Record in practice. Each pilot involves companies who are members of the ONE Record task force as well their partner companies; 25 companies in all.

The purpose of these pilots is to test ONE Record in a transport supply chain setting, including airlines, shippers, forwarders, ground handlers, CCS and customs.

Using the experience, experts in air cargo data and processes, continue to refine and develop the air freight ontology in RDF and JSON-LD as well as refine API and security specs.

In addition to sharing and exchanging FHL, FWB and shipment status data, each pilot is developing and testing new and additional function such as GHA integration, sensor and IoT data, road feeder services and more.

Once the pilots reach their objective, they will connect to each other turning these individual nodes into the initial core of an Internet of Logistics. 

Disruptive innovation is an indicator of the future performance of the air cargo industry and the ability transform legacy processes into a digital air cargo ecosystem.

The ONE Record data sharing standard helps build new capabilities in the industry participate in this digital transformation. 

Hackathons are a great incubator for disruptive innovation and demonstrate speed and agility in the deployment of the ONE Record technology. This is where creative and disruptive talent meets and push the boundaries of a very traditional industry.

These hackathons are round-the-clock (28hrs of non-stop coding!) experiences gathering developers from across the globe to work on innovative solutions enhancing the air cargo supply chain.

ONE Record as a data sharing standard is built on a simple premise: implement your own ONE Record server and connect to the Internet of Logistics, i.e. all the other ONE Record servers out there. To prime the pump, IATA developed a basic but fully functional ONE Record server that has been uploaded to GitHub for anyone to clone and deploy.

And that was the first challenge: implement a few ONE Record servers and join the movement.

Although these events are clearly powered by tech savvy innovators who compete to win on the strength of their solutions, these events are also about the community and the collaboration that is fostered there. The community of people that not only dare to innovate and introduce new and disruptive ideas, but who can't live without doing so. They invest their time, energy and budget to hang out with like-minded souls to move the needle forward a few notches. For some these hackathons are a privilege and unquestionably the best days in the year.

Geneva September 2018

Find out more about the winning team (Tata Consulting Services) which created a voice and Artificial Intelligence (AI) solution to automate the logistics of operation exceptions.

See the first cargo hackathon in action through the lens of the camera