IATA has issued a caution to manufacturers and online marketplaces over their handling of dangerous goods, putting the e-commerce supply chain on notice that undeclared and misdeclared hazardous shipments remain a direct threat to air safety.

The warning from the International Air Transport Association targets the two ends of the transaction that regulators have found hardest to police: the producer who classifies and packages the product, and the online platform that sells it to a consumer who may have no idea the item counts as dangerous goods under air transport rules.

At issue is the integrity of the air cargo chain. Freight moves through integrators, ground handlers and airline holds on the strength of a shipper's declaration. When a battery-powered device, an aerosol, a flammable liquid or a chemical kit enters that chain mislabelled — or not declared at all — the crew, the aircraft and the rest of the load are exposed to a risk that no party downstream can see or mitigate.

IATA's decision to address manufacturers and marketplaces directly reflects where the exposure now sits. Online retail has shifted the shipper profile from a trained corporate logistics function to millions of individual sellers and buyers. A marketplace listing rarely carries a dangerous-goods classification, and the consumer who drops the parcel at a collection point has no obligation — and often no knowledge — to make one.

For airlines, the consequences are operational as much as safety-related. A suspicious package triggers offloads, delays, hazmat responses and, in the worst cases, diversions and in-flight incidents. Each event consumes slots, disrupts networks and imposes costs that the carrier bears regardless of which seller caused the problem.

The trade body's caution also carries a regulatory edge. IATA's dangerous-goods regulations operationalise the International Civil Aviation Organization's Technical Instructions, and carriers are audited against them. Enforcement, however, has historically stopped at the known shipper — the airway bill holder — rather than the retail platform that originated the transaction. By naming marketplaces, IATA is signalling that it expects those platforms to take classification, labelling and disclosure responsibilities seriously for the goods they intermediate.

Manufacturers come in for parallel scrutiny. Product design decisions — battery chemistry, packaging, whether an item ships with cells installed or alongside them — determine whether a consignment is compliant, restricted or prohibited in an aircraft hold. IATA's message is that safety compliance begins at the design and production stage, not at the cargo acceptance desk.

The caution stops short, on the face of it, of new binding requirements. It functions as a public line in the sand: the airline industry expects sellers and producers to know the rules, apply them, and stop pushing undeclared risk into bellies of passenger aircraft and freighters alike.

What gives the warning weight is the direction of travel in air cargo itself. E-commerce volumes have grown into a structural share of belly capacity and dedicated freighter lift, meaning the share of cargo originating from unregulated or lightly regulated sellers rises with it. Regulators in the United States, Europe and Asia have each flagged lithium batteries and misdeclared goods as persistent enforcement priorities.

The test now is follow-through. If marketplaces respond with better listing controls, shipper screening and data sharing with carriers, the caution will have done its job; if the warning goes unheeded, expect IATA and its member carriers to push regulators for obligations that sit explicitly on the platforms themselves.