Carriage of Dangerous Goods
The Dangerous Goods Office of APSD regulates the transport of dangerous goods by air based on the ICAO and local legal requirements. The Dangerous Goods Office has established a dangerous goods permission system whereby airlines which satisfy all pertinent safety requirements will be granted a permission to carry dangerous goods to, from or over Hong Kong. During the year, 4 new and 44 renewal applications for dangerous goods permissions were processed. At the end of March 2018, 95 airlines have been granted permissions. The office also approved 39 organisations for conducting dangerous goods training programmes for airlines, air cargo terminals, freight forwarders and shippers. The Dangerous Goods Office conducted regular and ad-hoc inspections to airlines, air cargo terminals, freight forwarders, shippers and training organisations to ensure their compliance with the safety requirements on air transport of dangerous goods. For any non-compliances that were identified during inspections, the concerned entities were required to submit and implement corrective action plans to the satisfaction of CAD to prevent recurrence.
Promulgation of Safety Requirements
To enhance the awareness of the industry and the public of the safety requirements on air transport of dangerous goods, the Dangerous Goods Office continued to promulgate the safety requirements through various means. During the year, the Dangerous Goods Office continued to distribute leaflets and posters, review and update the Department's website, and promote safety requirements on air transport of dangerous goods when replying enquiries, and remind them to abide by the relevant safety requirements. In addition, the Dangerous Goods Office issued three advisory circulars to the air cargo industry during the year concerning the latest safety requirements on air transport of dangerous goods.
Legislation
To align the two sets of local legislation with the latest requirements of the ICAO Technical Instructions for the Safe Transport of Dangerous Goods by Air, the Dangerous Goods Office continued to take forward the related legislative amendment process during the year with the support of the Legislative Council and the aviation industry. The legislative amendment which introduced new requirements on the dangerous goods acceptance procedures and the provision of dangerous goods information to passengers for implementation by aircraft operators became effective from 31 March 2018.
Dangerous Goods Incidents
The incidents which occurred in the year were mainly related to undeclared dangerous goods. The Dangerous Goods Office conducted investigations into all these incidents for the purpose of preventing recurrence. CAD has also been taking prosecution actions against the concerned entities that were found contravening the dangerous goods legislation. In addition, useful incident information was disseminated to the air cargo industry in Hong Kong and other aviation authorities.
