From 1 July 2026, the freight forwarder who books and pays for a shipment carries responsibility for claims made under direct air waybills (DAWBs) — a unilateral IATA resolution change that took effect with carriers and forwarders still unsure how it will work in practice.

The rule shift has alarmed the forwarding industry. But it may also hand FIATA the leverage it lacked a decade ago to reopen negotiations on a joint global air cargo programme, ending airlines' sole control over industry decision-making.

How did we get here?

Rewind to 2017. IATA and FIATA launched the IATA FIATA Air Cargo Program (IFACP) in Canada, designed to replace the decades-old Cargo Agency Program. The idea was simple: treat forwarders as purchasing customers rather than agents of the airlines.

The programme also promised structural change. Decision-making would move to a balanced framework managed by a joint IATA FIATA Governance Board (IFGB), giving airlines and forwarders an equal partnership in setting the rules.

The forwarding industry received the plan positively at first. Then one clause killed it.

The DAWB stumbling block

IATA insisted that forwarders accept liability on direct air waybills, in the same way they do when moving consolidated cargo with themselves shown as the actual shipper. The major forwarders refused to sign.

Their argument was straightforward. On a DAWB, the forwarder is not the actual shipper of the goods. Accepting carrier-level liability for cargo they did not own made no commercial sense.

No solution was found. IATA pulled the plug a few years later, and the industry reverted to the status quo: airlines make all final decisions, alone.

What changed in 2026?

IATA moved unilaterally. Rather than negotiating the DAWB liability question through IFACP, it implemented a resolution that makes the booking-and-paying forwarder responsible in the event of a claim.

The reaction was predictable. The forwarding industry was up in arms, and when the change took effect on 1 July 2026, both sides of the transaction — carriers and forwarders — were uncertain what the rule meant operationally.

IATA said it would offer bilateral agreements to manage the new arrangement. Whether those have materialised remains unclear; Air Cargo Week's correspondent reports being unable to establish if that is the case. Legal advice is being taken around the world on what, if anything, can be done to reverse the decision.

What does this change for forwarders?

In the short term, exposure. Forwarders booking on DAWBs now face claim liability they previously resisted on principle — which is why the industry has encouraged a hard look at insurance cover since the change took effect.

In the longer term, possibly something better. The one clause that sank IFACP in 2017 was DAWB liability. IATA has now imposed it anyway. Which removes the stumbling block.

The FIATA opening

That raises an obvious question for the industry: what now stops FIATA from reopening discussions on a global air programme?

A successfully implemented programme would mean every country operating under the same resolutions, rather than a patchwork of national practice. More importantly, it would put the industry under a joint council of airlines and forwarders — not airlines alone.

For forwarders who have spent nearly a decade watching rules set without them at the table, that has to count as an improvement. The path is to push FIATA and IATA back into talks on a new global air programme, and ideally stop unilateral decisions like this one being made in future.

Whether the two bodies can now strike the deal that eluded them in 2017 will shape how air cargo liability, governance and claims handling develop over the next cycle of negotiations.