For years, digitalisation in air cargo was largely defined by one objective: replacing paper with electronic documents. That shift mattered. Programs such as e-freight laid the foundation for real progress, and today electronic air waybills are used for more than two-thirds of global shipments, proving that the industry is capable of change.
But digitising paperwork did not fundamentally transform the way information moved through the supply chain. Data continued to sit in silos, passed between stakeholders through messaging systems built for another era.
That is the gap IATA’s ONE Record was designed to close.
Rather than relying on repeated data exchanges between different parties, ONE Record is built around the idea of a single digital record for each shipment, accessible to authorised stakeholders through standardised web APIs. Using a common JSON-LD data model, it aligns air cargo with the kinds of web technologies already used in other industries. The vision is straightforward, but ambitious: one shipment, one source of truth.
This marks a deeper shift than previous digital standards. Tools such as Cargo-IMP and Cargo-XML supported electronic communication, but they did not solve the underlying fragmentation of data. Airlines, forwarders, handlers and regulators still maintained their own versions of the same shipment information, often duplicating, adjusting or reconciling it along the way.
ONE Record changes that logic. Instead of moving the data around endlessly, it allows data to remain with its owner, while partners access it directly from the original source under controlled permissions. In theory, that improves data quality, strengthens accountability and creates a more interoperable environment across different systems. Longstanding concerns around security and confidentiality are also being addressed through federated security infrastructures that support authentication and protected access.
In practical terms, the industry is moving from simple document exchange toward something more dynamic: real-time collaboration around shared shipment data.
There is now visible momentum behind that model. This year, IATA formally recognised ONE Record as the preferred standard for data exchange in the cargo industry, and the expectation is that more than 70% of global air waybills will be using this standard in the near future.
That support reflects a growing consensus across the sector: legacy systems are no longer sufficient for the demands of modern logistics, especially in markets shaped by e-commerce, pharma, and time-critical cargo.
Operational improvements are starting to emerge, but gradually rather than uniformly. More stakeholders are beginning to work from shared shipment data rather than from separate reports that need constant reconciliation. Even so, progress is uneven. Air cargo is a network-driven ecosystem, which means the real value of such a standard only becomes visible at scale. Smaller operators, older IT environments and uneven readiness across the market continue to slow adoption. In that sense, the challenge is no longer purely technological. It is also organisational.
ONE Record is also driving a cultural shift. Greater transparency reduces information imbalances between stakeholders, and broader data visibility can improve efficiency across the chain. In today’s environment, shaped by geopolitical tension, changing trade rules and disrupted airspace, fragmented systems are no longer just inefficient. They represent a genuine operational risk.
The long-term significance of ONE Record may lie less in what it is today than in what it makes possible next. IATA’s Air Cargo AI Excellence Hub, along with emerging tools that allow users to interact with cargo standards in natural language, all depend on structured and standardised data. Without that foundation, automation and artificial intelligence cannot scale meaningfully.
So, has ONE Record fully achieved its original mission? Not entirely. But that may not be the right measure of success. Its progress so far has been more incremental than revolutionary. Even so, by changing how shipment data is shared and governed, it is laying the infrastructure needed for a genuinely digital air cargo industry. In that sense, ONE Record may be less a finished solution than the platform on which the future of air cargo will be built.
