What is IATA CBTA (Competency-based Training Assessment)

I wanted to give folks an update on my recent journey to take the IATA competency-based training instructors course. This is nothing new for those of us in the United States, but I wanted to see how this was being presented by IATA and I wanted to understand it.

Video of Brussels IATA CBTA Recap

IATA is offering CBTA courses, and they are, for the most part, at least $2000 per student, so your employer can decide if they want to go that route. Again, in the US we’ve always had “CBTA,” if not in name, in practice.

Also, another important takeaway is that while IATA has “eliminated” the decades-old Category 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc. that was in DGR 1.5, in some respects they have excised them and built them into a new book that you acquire IN ADDITION to the DGR. You can see an example of this shift on IATA’s CBTA page.

Competency-based Training for Dangerous Goods

Always remember that, at the end of the day, IATA is a trade association representing airlines, not a government entity. IATA should be commended for taking a very detailed systems approach to DG training, and the training, while not “government approved” per se, is still very useful, especially in parts of the world that have not previously taken a CBTA approach. How the economics of all this work out remains to be seen.