Future of Mail by Air

This initiative began after changes in the mail and airline industry, when the transport network of mail by air was becoming less reliable and less sustainable to support growing market and regulatory demands.

The Future of Mail by Air initiative aims at transferring the traditional customer-supplier relationship between posts and air carriers into business partnership and to improve the visibility of mail in transport at a lower overall operating cost. Optimisation options for business processes are identified in the areas of sourcing, planning, handover monitoring and accounting of mail transport by air. The key optimisation option identified is to align mail and cargo processes in transport without changing the legal status of mail.

The vision is to implement paper-free transport and accounting for post-to-post, posts and ground handler, and post to carrier and border agency exchanges. The initiative provides a permanent focus on improving quality of service; on improving interoperability and cost effective operations, combined with a forum to discuss and be pro-active to future trends.

FoMbA Business Processes	EDI Accountability & Visibility	Online Forum
The FoMbA Road Map outlines the path FoMbA participants take to achieve automated, simplified, aligned and paper free business processes for mail carriage between Posts, Airlines and stake holders. Step by step standard FoMbA operational processes and messaging procedures are agreed and implemented. More	International mail is growing business. The growing business demands accountability & visibility. By expanding EDI standards and technology already in place, your company can grow its market share, increase revenues, improve customer service, reduce costs and promote efficiencies. FoMbA participants do expand EDI. More	One of the conditions to participate in FoMbA is to be actively involved in the discussions, activities and trials to progress the work outlined in the Road Map. The Online Forum facilitates efficient interchange of views and helps participants reach agreement. Online Forum
IPC MRD	IPC Forecasting & Booking Tool	Performance Monitoring
The IPC Mail Registration Device (MRD) aides in providing higher visibility into the inbound and outbound mail handover process by enabling mail handlers to quickly and simply register mail deliveries into postal facilities in airports (Air Mail Units, or AMUs). More	Mail volumes are growing. Mail also gets more voluminous. Forecasting mail volumes and mail allocation planning is getting increasingly important to ensure realiability of the air transport network. IPC developed a prototype tool to forecast, allocate and book mail on flights interactively between posts and air carries.	The improved messaging capabilities, the enhanced messaging standard, the data capturing efficiencies and the expansion of EDI between posts and carriers provide more visibility and facilitate performance monitoring. IPC developed reports for posts, air carriers and ground handlers.