The general declaration, or GenDec, is the document that tells the authorities at each airport who and what is on board. It is one of the most retyped documents in trip support, and one of the easiest to get wrong.
What it is
The GenDec format comes from ICAO Annex 9 (Facilitation). It is submitted to customs, immigration and health authorities on arrival and departure for international flights. Many states accept it electronically; some still want paper signed by the commander.
What goes on it
- Operator and aircraft registration, for example
A6-AVG - Flight number or callsign, date
- Departure and arrival airports, for example
OMDBandLFPB - Route and stops
- Crew list with names, roles, nationalities and document numbers
- Number of passengers embarking and disembarking at each stop
- Declarations of health and of any cargo
Passenger details are often submitted separately as a passenger manifest or through an advance passenger information system, depending on the country.
Who prepares it
The operator is responsible, but trip support companies and handlers often prepare it on their behalf. That is where retyping starts: crew and passenger data arrives by email, gets typed into a template, then typed again for the next leg.
How to stop retyping
Keep crew and passenger data once, against the trip, with document numbers and expiry dates. Generate the GenDec per leg from that data, with the stops and passenger movements filled in from the routing. When a passenger is added or a crew member changes, regenerate it rather than editing a copy.
Aviagrid stores crew and passenger data on the trip and builds the GenDec and briefing documents per leg. See flight dispatch and planning.
Common mistakes
- Expired passports or crew licences that nobody checked against the trip dates
- Passenger counts that do not match the manifest after a late change
- Local time written where the authority expects UTC
- The wrong commander on a leg after a crew swap