Air terminal storage: a clock that runs in hours, not days

Container detention is billed in days, so an error gets noticed. At an air terminal time is billed in hours, so an error happens faster than anyone notices the clock is even running.

Who bills whom

The first thing worth separating out, because it determines whom to address at all.

The container detention invoice is issued by the ocean carrier under your transport contract. The air terminal storage invoice is usually issued by the terminal operator — a ground-handling company that is neither an airline nor, strictly speaking, a party to your contract.

Practical consequence: the claim goes not to the airline, but to the terminal or via a forwarder who has a contract with the terminal. That's a different addressee, a different contract, and a different set of arguments than the container case.

From when does the clock run

This is where most disputes come from.

Free storage time can start counting from different moments:

• from flight arrival — the earliest option, least favorable to the client;
• from the arrival notice — from the moment the consignee is informed;
• from customs release — the latest option, when the cargo can actually be collected.

The difference between the first and third can be two days. And if the terminal counts from arrival while the cargo spent that whole time in customs processing, the client pays for time during which the cargo physically couldn't have been picked up.

That's not necessarily a violation — it depends on the terminal tariff's wording. But it's the first thing to check, and it takes five minutes: pull the terminal tariff and compare it with the date the invoice counted from.

Non-working days

A second frequent dispute point. If cargo arrived Friday evening and the terminal's release window is closed on weekends, are Saturday and Sunday counted into the storage time?

The answer depends on the tariff, and it varies between terminals. Some exclude non-working days, others don't. A third option — open, but for an extra fee, and then the question becomes whether that option was communicated.

Again — not every case is an error. But the difference between two and four days at an air terminal is noticeable, because the rate is charged per started 100 kg per day, not per shipment.

Why no one checks

The amount looks small compared to the freight. Air freight costs are high, so a few hundred euros of storage looks like a rounding error. But it's a rounding error that repeats.

The invoice arrives later and from a different source. The freight invoice comes from the carrier, storage from the terminal, often weeks apart. They never get compared, because they arrive through different channels.

There's no one left to dispute it. The cargo has already been delivered, the process is over, and the person who knew when customs released it is already working on other shipments.

The tariff isn't at hand. Terminal tariffs are published, but no one pulls them up for a single invoice.

What you can check

A practical sequence that fits any storage invoice:

1. From which date did counting start? Compare it with the flight arrival, notification, and customs release dates.

2. What does the terminal tariff say? From which event does it expect counting to start.

3. How much free time was included? In hours, not days.

4. Did non-working days fall within the period? And what the tariff says about them.

5. Was the tariff applied correctly? Usually per started 100 kg per day, with a minimum charge.

If there's a discrepancy in even one point, it's worth asking. If there's none — the invoice is correct, and that's a result worth knowing too.

How to avoid it altogether

The only real way is to see the clock before it stops.

If you know the cargo arrived Wednesday at 14:00 and free time is 24 hours from notification, then Thursday afternoon is a deadline, not a surprise. The problem is that no one sees this information anywhere — it's scattered across the AWB, flight data, the customs system, and the terminal notice.

That's exactly what Demurrit's “Sea & Air” module does: from the air waybill and arrival data it calculates when free time runs out, and alerts before it does. And already-issued invoices can be checked through the D&D audit — with one caveat worth saying up front: for air terminals, the claim is filed against the terminal operator, not the airline, so the process differs from container detention.