Government

Meeting the messaging needs of Spanish Customs and its industry partners

AENA, the authority responsible for all airports in Spain, needed a robust, reliable and secure email messaging system to communicate with the Spanish Customs and Tax Administration regarding all incoming and outgoing cargo.

A secure and reliable choice

The Madrid-Barajas airport, for example, daily handles some 300,000 tonnes of cargo destined for points around the world. This cargo — including perishable foods, livestock and hazardous goods — must be properly declared, handled and sent to destinations without delay. In addition, because cargo traffic at Madrid is growing by 9% annually, AENA needs a messaging solution that can handle increasing numbers of transactions without sacrificing either speed or stability.

An integrated solution

AENA chose the Incite Messaging Server for its reliability, high security and ease of configuration. The Incite Messaging Server also complies with standards for UN/EDIFACT messaging. Running on Sun Solaris and HP-UX platforms, the server provides connectivity between reservation/handling systems built in-house, and COMPAS, the processing system used by Spanish Customs.

The Incite Messaging Server is also used to process customs declarations. To encourage electronic filing, Customs offers four different processing options — yet, like the cargo handling organizations at Madrid-Barajas, most users have chosen to exchange documents using the EDIFACT standard, via the Incite Messaging Server. The result is that over 80% of the 15 million declarations processed annually are received over the Incite Messaging Server on HP-UX.

AENA also serves as an intermediary between shipping companies and the Spanish Tax Department. Declarations are sent via the Incite Messaging Server through AENA to the Tax Department, and then routed through AENA to the shipping companies with either an acceptance or a rejection attached to the declaration.

Systems integration partner

Indra Sistemas, Incite's partner in Spain, has worked closely with these agencies to ensure smooth system implementation and to maximize efficiencies. Their business knowledge and technical expertise have made them an invaluable partner, truly creating a "win" for the customer.

"...AENA wants to have control over the merchandise that is shipped through the airport," says a representative of Indra Sistemas, explaining why individual shipping companies do not have direct contact with the AEAT. "The Spanish Tax Administration lets only a few IP addresses have contact with them," he says. Only an impermeable email system like the Incite Messaging Server is able to meet the high security needs of these users.

In an environment where downtime could have disastrous consequences, Incite's software provides a reliable message transport system, allowing commercial and governmental organizations to interoperate seamlessly and successfully.