Air Cargo Status Codes Explained: BKD, RCS, DEP, ARR, NFD, DLV and More

Airline cargo tracking is built on short three-letter codes such as BKD, DEP and NFD. They come from the IATA status messages that airlines, ground handlers and forwarders exchange: the FSU (freight status update) message in the older Cargo-IMP standard, and the equivalent status message in Cargo-XML. Once you know what each code records, and what it does not, a tracking history becomes a precise record of where your cargo is and who is holding it.

The main status codes

For shorter definitions of these and other terms you may see on carrier pages, see the status glossary.

Before the flight: BKD, FOH, RCS

BKD is administrative. A forwarder has reserved space, and the airline has confirmed it. A shipment can sit at BKD for days, and bookings are moved from one flight to another regularly, so a BKD on a particular flight is a plan rather than a promise.

FOH and RCS are often confused. FOH says the goods are in the building. RCS says the airline has accepted them: the pieces have been counted and weighed, the documents checked, and security screening requirements met. Only after RCS is the cargo ready to fly. If a shipment shows FOH for a long time without RCS, the usual causes are missing documents, a screening backlog or a mismatch between the booking and the cargo delivered.

Flight movement: PRE, MAN, DEP, ARR

PRE and MAN happen in the hours before departure. The cargo is built onto a pallet or into a container, and the shipment is added to the flight manifest. Not every airline reports PRE.

DEP is reported when the flight departs, normally with the flight number. ARR is reported when it arrives at the next airport. Both relate to a flight segment, not to the whole journey, so a two-leg routing produces two DEP and two ARR events.

Why DEP can appear without ARR for hours

The most obvious reason is the flight itself: a long-haul sector is in the air for many hours, and nothing new can be reported until it lands. Several other effects add to the gap:

• Time zones. Each event is normally stamped in the local time of the airport where it happened. A flight that departs FRA at 22:00 and arrives in DOH at 05:40 the next morning is not in the air for seven hours and forty minutes; Doha is ahead of Frankfurt, so the real flight time is shorter.
• Reporting delay. ARR is sent by the arrival station or generated from flight data. Some stations report promptly; others batch their updates.
• Offloads. If cargo is offloaded before departure, a DEP that was sent for the planned flight may later be followed by a new booking and a fresh DEP on another flight.

After landing: RCF, NFD, AWD, CCD, DLV

ARR tells you the aircraft is on the ground. RCF tells you your cargo has been unloaded from the ULD, counted and placed in the warehouse. On busy days, breakdown can take hours, and only after RCF can the warehouse release anything. NFD follows when the consignee or the agent named on the AWB has been told the cargo is ready. AWD shows the arrival documents have been passed to that party, usually the customs broker.

CCD is reported only where the carrier receives customs release information, so many shipments never show it even though they clear normally. DLV is the final milestone: the cargo has left the airline's custody, typically collected by a trucker on behalf of the consignee. What happens between these steps is covered in detail in what happens after your air cargo lands.

A direct flight, step by step

A shipment on Swiss WorldCargo from ZRH to ATH on a single flight might produce:

1. BKD ZRH, booked on the planned flight
2. RCS ZRH, 4 pieces, 312 kg accepted
3. MAN ZRH, manifested on the flight
4. DEP ZRH, 4 pieces departed
5. ARR ATH, 4 pieces arrived
6. RCF ATH, 4 pieces checked in
7. NFD ATH, consignee notified
8. DLV ATH, 4 pieces delivered

Some carriers will add PRE or AWD; others skip MAN in what they show to the public. The order, though, stays the same.

A transfer at a hub

Now take Turkish Cargo AWB 235-94456121 routed BEG→IST→DOH. Both legs are flown by the same airline, so there is no change of carrier:

1. RCS BEG, 10 pieces accepted
2. DEP BEG, 10 pieces on the first flight
3. ARR IST, 10 pieces
4. RCF IST, 10 pieces received into the transfer area
5. MAN IST, manifested on the IST–DOH flight
6. DEP IST, 10 pieces
7. ARR DOH, then RCF, NFD and DLV at DOH

Between ARR at IST and DEP from IST is the connection time, which can range from a few hours to several days depending on flight frequency and space. When the onward flight is operated by a different airline, you would instead see TFD from the first carrier and RCT from the second. Tracking may then continue on the second carrier's system, though the AWB number does not change. The first three digits of that number identify the issuing airline, which you can look up in our list of airline prefixes.

Partial pieces and split shipments

Every status event carries a piece count and weight. When the count is lower than the AWB total, the shipment has been split. For example:

• DEP IST 5/10 pieces on the first flight
• DEP IST 5/10 pieces on a later flight

Splits happen when a ULD runs out of space, when an aircraft hits its weight limit, or when some pieces were not ready at acceptance. They are routine and not a sign of loss. The shipment is complete when the piece counts at destination add up to the AWB total. If they never do, or a DIS event reports missing pieces, ask your forwarder to open a trace with the airline. The troubleshooting page lists the checks worth doing first.

How airline portals translate the codes

Most carriers do not show raw codes to the public. One portal may display "Booked", "Accepted", "Departed" and "Delivered"; another shows "Ready for carriage" for RCS or "Arrival notification sent" for NFD. Some portals also collapse events, for instance showing only the latest status per flight leg. The underlying message is the same IATA milestone. If a description is unclear, match it to the closest code in the table above, and remember that the airport and piece count matter as much as the wording.

Reading codes on AWBTracking.net

When you search an AWB on the tracking lookup, AWBTracking.net shows each event with its airport, time and piece count, so you can follow the sequence above for the airlines we support. If the latest event looks wrong or stops changing, check the time zone and the piece count before assuming something has gone missing.