More recently, in response to a fire on a FedEx freighter that appeared to start with hazmat, the FAA has required carriers to have more information about their dangerous goods available on demand at all times. However, I think the FAA has not used its resources in all instances in a way to foster improvement in actual compliance by air carriers. The FAA seems more interested at times in levying large sanctions than in looking at ways to improve things and perhaps reward carriers who establish compliance programs. At the nation's airports, freighter operators say they are seeing more hazmat shipments as commercial airlines have raised bars against dangerous goods or even banned them completely from their bellies. It is a category of traffic that you have to handle with a great deal of expertise just to meet the regulations.
Every airline has the responsibility of bringing people up to speed.
Amerijet has, in fact, seen a decline in the percentage of shipments it turns back to its industrial shippers for poor packaging or paperwork. The airline says it rejected eight of the 1,452 dangerous goods shipments it received in September, an improvement over the performance of past years. The shippers are becoming better educated. When we have a shipment that has a problem, the first thing we do is contact the shipper. Eighty percent of the rejects are due to documentation.