What Is The IATA Report?

IATA Report, the full name is Identification And Classification Report for Air Transport of Goods. That is a very important report in magnet shipping. People can not ship magnets by air without it.

Shipping neodymium magnets by air is not easy. Even though we ship hundreds of packages every year, there are still some products that can’t be shipped by air – for example, a big magnet. (In some cases, for magnets of the same size, an individual piece can not pass the test, but 2 pieces in a pack will have no problem for shipping by air. That’s another story about magnetic field).

As we know, big magnets field will interfere with the electronic equipment and navigation on planes. That’s why many industrial magnets and magnetic assemblies cannot be shipped by air.

That is why people prefer to ship magnets by vehicle or by sea. Because magnets shipped by air will be easy to classify as Dangerous Goods if they have not been packed well to block their magnetism. Additionally, many carriers will not accept magnets for air shipments.

In fact, magnets can be shipped by air, if we follow some guidelines that explain how magnets should be properly packaged and obtain IATA reports from some certified labs.

What IATA Reports Say About Magnet Shipping

IATA Packing Instruction 953 states magnetized material will be accepted only when:

• Devices such as magnetrons and light meters have been packed so that the polarities of the individual units oppose one another
• Permanent magnets, when possible, have keeper bars installed
• The magnetic field strength at a distance of 4.6 m (15 ft) from any point on the surface of the assembled consignment
• Does not exceed 0.418 A/m (0.00525 gauss), or
• Produces a magnetic compass deflection of 2 degrees or less

Packaging

About how to pack the magnet, please visit our post – how to pack the magnet well. But we would like to mention that a one-piece large magnet is hard to ship by air, two pieces have a small opportunity, but the shipping cost is high. So we suggest customers ship large magnets by sea.

What Is The IATA Report Like?

There are some labs or inspection company offer IATA report services. If the parcels pass the inspection, they will issue reports like below, with “NOT RESTRICTED”. That means DHL, FedEx, UPS can pick up the parcels and ship them by air.

If the parcels fail this inspection, they will mark it “DANGEROUS GOODS”, which means we need to repack them and make an inspection again or choose another way to ship the parcels.