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Air cargo, the Known Consignor scheme

The CAA auditor will ask what provisions are in place for visitors

The CAA’s guide says anyone reaching identifiable air cargo must be background checked and security trained, or escorted by somebody who is. It then says the auditor will ascertain what provisions are in place for employees, contractors, cleaners and visitors. The audit comes every twelve months and is ordinarily unannounced, so the answer has to be the record of an ordinary day.

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From £150 a month plus VAT, iPad and stand included. We are not aviation security advisers, and every quotation on this page is from the CAA’s public guide.

What the CAA’s guide says

Five lines from CAP 1810, and what each one wants at the door

One document: the Cargo Agents (Known Consignor) Guide, Version 5, July 2026. The rules themselves are in a direction that is not published, so the guide is what can be quoted. The quotations are verbatim.

CAP 1810, Identifiable Air Cargo

Checked and trained, or escorted, and the auditor asks about visitors

“To access identifiable secure air cargo/mail an individual must either be suitably background checked, and security trained or be escorted by a person who meets these requirements. Consequently, the auditor will ascertain what provisions are in place for employees; contractors; cleaners; visitors etc.”

The sentence that puts your reception inside the audit. A visitor, a contractor or a cleaner is almost never background checked and security trained to the scheme, so the provision the auditor is asking about is the escort, and how you know it happened.

CAP 1810, Site Security

Access to the cargo area is controlled

“It is essential that access to the area where air cargo/mail is processed or stored is controlled.”

The guide goes on to say you will be asked to demonstrate how the site is protected and that appropriate access control procedures are in place, and that all doors, windows and other points of access to air cargo need to be secured or subject to access control.

CAP 1810, Site Security

The level of security is yours to show

“A Known Consignor shall ensure that there is a level of security on the site or at the premises sufficient to protect identifiable air cargo and identifiable airmail from unauthorised interference.”

Sufficient is judged on the day, by an auditor who asks questions, observes the site, inspects documentation and may review CCTV.

CAP 1810, Site Security

Even the auditor has to be identified at the door

“A Known Consignor must be able to demonstrate how statutory authority personnel (the CAA auditor) are correctly identified before being allowed on site and given access to Known Consignor materials.”

The audit starts at reception, with the auditor as the visitor. The guide adds that any checks that give access to secure air cargo must be made by a member of staff trained for the Known Consignor role.

CAP 1810, audits

Every year, and not always by appointment

“Thereafter annual re-validation audits will be conducted on an announced or unannounced basis.”

The same guide says a CAA auditor has a statutory right of access to approved Known Consignor premises at all times, and that the CAA’s audit activity is ordinarily unannounced. The visitor procedure has to be the one running on an ordinary Tuesday.

None of this tells you to buy anything, and the guide names no visitor log. What it tells you is that a visitor near air cargo is either escorted or should not be there, and that somebody will ask how you know.

At the door

What an iPad at reception records towards it

The same kiosk your other auditors and your fire marshal use, with your escort rule on the screen.

Every arrival on the record, with a host

Anyone coming on to the site signs in and out on the iPad, as a visitor, a contractor, a cleaner or a driver. Each one is tied to the member of staff they came to see, with the time on both ends. Where you switch on the escort record, your staff also name who escorted each one, picked from your staff list.

Your escort rule, accepted by name

The wording you need a visitor to see, for example that they will be escorted at all times in the packing and despatch areas, is put on screen and accepted before they go further. Each acceptance is stored against the person with a timestamp.

Vehicles recorded at sign in

The sign in form takes a registration if they have driven in, stored with the visit, so who was parked near the despatch bay on a given day is a filter and not a memory.

A record the auditor can be shown on the day

Filter by date, by company or by host and export it to a file that opens without our software. An unannounced audit asks for last Tuesday, not for a tidy version of it.

Watch it workThe visitor management kiosk in fullThe same door, for AEOThe same door, for a TAPA FSR warehouseA US customer’s CTPAT questionnaireBadges and staff approvalMore than one site

On the day of the audit

Five questions at reception, and where the answers come from

Each of these is the guide turned into the question an auditor asks. Two of them the kiosk answers only in part, and the answers say which.

  • Who has had access to this site since the last audit?The sign in and sign out record, filtered by date, with each visitor’s company and the member of staff they were tied to.
  • What provisions are in place for visitors, contractors and cleaners?Your written procedure, the wording shown at sign in, and the stored acceptance against each named person with its time.
  • How do you know a visitor was escorted?Your escort procedure, and with the escort record switched on, the name of the escort against each visit, entered by your staff from your staff list. A visit nobody recorded stays blank; it is never filled in as the host. The kiosk cannot see whether the escort stayed beside them. With the badge module, a printed badge issued only after a member of staff approves the visit, so the floor can see who was signed in.
  • How was I identified when I arrived?The check your trained member of staff made, which the kiosk does not do. What it adds is the record that the auditor was signed in, by whom they were met, and when.
  • Is it the same at each site on your approval?One company account with a kiosk at each site. Each site is validated separately, and each has its own record.

Before you ask

The questions a site security lead asks first

Does the Known Consignor scheme require a visitor log?

The CAA’s public guide does not name one. It says that to access identifiable secure air cargo a person must be background checked and security trained or be escorted by someone who is, and that the auditor will ascertain what provisions are in place for employees, contractors, cleaners and visitors. A record of who came, who they were with and what they were told is one way of showing the provision exists; the guide does not say it is the only way.

How often does the CAA audit a Known Consignor?

The CAA’s scheme page says every Known Consignor is subject to a 12 monthly validation of their premises. The guide says annual re-validation audits will be conducted on an announced or unannounced basis, and that the CAA’s audit activity in aviation security is ordinarily unannounced.

Where are the actual rules?

Not in public. The cargo chapter of the retained aviation security regulation was removed from UK law on 1 June 2024, and Known Consignors are now directed to comply with the Single Consolidated Direction (Aviation), which is not published. That is why this page quotes the CAA’s guide and nothing else, and why your own security programme comes first.

Can a visitor go into the despatch area at all?

On the guide’s wording, only if they are background checked and security trained or are escorted by a person who is. Most sites answer that by keeping visitors out of the area unless escorted, and telling them so at the door. What the kiosk adds is that each visitor is shown that rule and accepts it by name before going further and, with the escort record on, that your staff note who took them in.

We are a regulated agent, not a known consignor. Does this apply?

This page is written from the Known Consignor guide and we have not read the guide for regulated agents. The CAA’s regulated agents page says an applicant must show that the site is secure and access controls are in place. If you run a freight warehouse, the page on the TAPA FSR visitor log may be closer to your questions.

How long should the visitor record be kept?

The guide gives no period for a visitor record. Choose one that covers at least the interval between audits, write it into your procedure and keep to it. UK GDPR still applies to the names in the record, so the period should be no longer than you can justify.

Being straight with you

What this does not do

  • We are not aviation security advisers and nothing here is advice on a Known Consignor application or audit. This is general information about one published CAA guide.
  • The rules that bind a Known Consignor are in a direction that is not published. This page quotes the CAA’s public guide only, and your own security programme and the CAA are the authority on what applies to you.
  • The guide names no visitor log and no electronic system. It asks what provisions are in place and requires an escort for anyone who is not checked and trained. A well run paper procedure can answer it.
  • The kiosk does not know who is background checked or security trained, does not check anybody’s identity, and does not control any door to the cargo area. It records the name a visitor types and the wording they accept.
  • The escort is on the record only where you switch the escort record on and a member of your staff enters it. The kiosk does not see the escort happen; the record shows who your staff named.
  • Site security under the scheme covers far more than reception: the cargo area, packing, storage, despatch, transport, recruitment and training. A kiosk touches one question in one section.
  • Badges and staff approval are an add-on module, not part of the platform price.

Sources

Check any of this yourself

General information about a published guide, not aviation security advice. The quotations are short extracts from the Civil Aviation Authority’s guide, acknowledged here and linked above. Guidance changes; read the current guide before you rely on a quotation here.

Also asked of sites like yours

The other things somebody may ask you to evidence

Each of these is a page about one standard, one duty or one visitor, written the same way as this one: what it actually asks for, what an iPad at reception records towards it, and where it does not help.

Every standard on one page: the clause numbers, the version and the date each was read, on one printable table.

Advise sites on this standard? Referral terms are on one page.

Next step

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