International Air Transport Association – IATA

The transportation of dangerous goods can be extremely hazardous. Because of that, the regulatory bodies for all international forms of transport have sets of guidelines surrounding how hazardous goods should be transported. The IATA (International Air Transport Association) has a set of dangerous goods regulations.

Regulations aim to create a standard, harmonised approach to the transportation of dangerous goods by air.

IATA classify dangerous goods as articles or goods which are capable of posing a significant risk to health, safety or to property when transported by air.

The regulations have a section that provides a list of criteria to determine if goods should be classed as “dangerous”.

Section 4.2 displays a list of Dangerous Goods examples of which include:

Accellerene

Alkaloids

Ammunition

Arsenic

Benzenes

Chloride

Cyclonite

Dicyclohexylamine

Ethylene

Gutta

Hydrogen

Iodine

Nitrogen

Potassium

Sodium

Triethyl phosphite

Zirconium Scrap

Anyone sending hazardous goods by air internationally must comply with the requirements set out in the IATA regulations. This will ensure that the goods are stored in the correct protective hazmat packaging, are marked with the correct hazard labels and that the staff handling them will be kept as safe as possible. Shippers should also conform to best practices to prevent events that may harm the environment.

The IATA dangerous goods regulations forbid certain substances from being transported by air, including toxic gases, combustible materials, explosives and radioactive matter. It also requires that all matters of compliances should be documented. This means that all shippers should maintain staff training records, correctly classify dangerous substances and choose the correct labels, marks and packaging for their shipments. The IATA has developed a set of training services to assist shippers with this.

Information correct at time of publishing, Feb 2018