When a consignment is being carried through an AWB which is issued having the name of Shipper and Consignee on it, it is called a “Master Air Waybill – MAWB”. Agent may be able issue its own AWB for carriage of a shipment and attach is to the MAWB. This Agent issued AWB is called House Air Waybill – HAWB which has the same shape and layout of the MAWB having the reference number of the agent along with the Carrier’s number of AWB.

To do this, in MAWB, name of shipper will be the name of Agent at origin and name of consignee will be name of Agent’s representative at destination. In HAWB, name of original Shipper and original Consignee will be reflected. Delivery order of the shipment shall be delivered to the Agent and agent then will endorse the name of original consignee and deliver the same to him.

There are different reasons that a HAWB may be issued:

• PP/CC – Prepaid/Charges Collect.

If the regulations of destination country do not allow issuing AWB on CC basis, agent may issue the MAWB on PP basis and then issue the HAWB on CC basis. Representative of Agent at destination will receive the freight charges from consignee and transfer the freight charge to origin for his counterpart.

• Additional Services – Notification of Arrival – NOA.

Agent may provide additional service for his customer by allowing consignee to know the shipment status and once shipment arrives, send him the “Notification of Arrival – NOA”. This way, the MAWB will be issued to the name of Agent’s representative at destination. This representative will release the shipment documents to consignee and may be able to make some money out of delivery order as well.

• Notice of Non-Delivery and related Charges.

There are times that shipment arrives destination and consignee refuse the acceptance. This may result in additional charges for the agent who issued the AWB at origin and subsequently agent should bill these charges to Shipper.

Normally it takes time for the airline to send the information of non-delivery to origin and as the warehouse charges are quite high, this delay may result in extra charges.

Agent can either ask for POD (Proof of Delivery) details for all the shipments he sent to different destinations from Airline(s) or, if Agent consigns the goods to his representative, he will immediately inform his counterpart at origin that consignee refused the acceptance and can take necessary actions to avoid increasingly warehouse charges and other charges related to return the shipment to origin or destroying it at destination.

• Releasing cargo to Consignee after payments

There may be times that shipment is being sent on “COD – Cash on Delivery” basis. The goods are released to the importer only after the importer makes the payment and charges. The HAWB is needed in such cases. Agent’s rep at destination will receive the shipment and release the shipment to original consignee after having received the payments.

• Consolidation

HAWB can be used for consolidation of shipments. This way the agent can make more money by collecting the shipments and deliver shipments of customers in one MAWB to the airline and pay lesser freight charges. (Section 4.10.)