What is a Master Air Waybill (MAWB)?
A Master Air Waybill (MAWB) is the contract of carriage between the freight forwarder and the airline. It covers the entire consignment loaded onto the aircraft — the forwarder is named as the shipper, and the forwarder's destination agent or hub facility is the consignee. The airline sees only the MAWB; it does not know who the individual shippers are behind the consolidation.
The MAWB number follows the IATA format: a three-digit airline prefix, a hyphen, then a seven-digit serial ending in a mod-7 check digit (for example, 020-12345675). The prefix identifies the issuing carrier or the neutral stock the forwarder holds.
What is a House Air Waybill (HAWB)?
A House Air Waybill (HAWB) is the contract between the forwarder and each individual shipper. It mirrors the structure of a MAWB — shipper, consignee, goods description, charges — but it is issued by the forwarder, not the airline. At the destination, customs and the delivery agent work from the HAWB to release the cargo to the correct party.
HAWBs use the forwarder's own numbering scheme and do not need to follow the airline prefix format. Each HAWB rides "inside" one MAWB.
A concrete consolidation scenario
Imagine five separate shippers in Shanghai each have 200 kg of garments bound for Milan. Instead of five separate airline bookings, the forwarder consolidates them into a single consignment:
• One MAWB (e.g., 020-12345675) covers all 1,000 kg from Shanghai to Milan on the airline's booking system. • Five HAWBs (H001 through H005) document each shipper's portion, specifying the individual goods, declared value, and named consignee.
At Milan, the break-bulk agent splits the single pallet, matches each HAWB to its consignee, and arranges last-mile delivery — without the airline needing to process five separate bookings.
MAWB vs HAWB — comparison
The table below summarises the key differences:
Attribute | MAWB | HAWB Issued by | Airline (or forwarder on neutral stock) | Freight forwarder Parties | Forwarder as shipper ↔ airline | Individual shipper ↔ forwarder Seen by | Airline, customs, destination agent | Consignee, customs, delivery agent Number format | Airline prefix + 7-digit serial + check digit | Forwarder's own scheme Cargo-IMP message | FWB (Freight Waybill) | FHL (Freight House Manifest) Count per flight | One per consolidation | One per individual shipper
FWB and FHL: the Cargo-IMP messages
Airlines require the MAWB data in machine-readable form before departure. The FWB (Freight Waybill) message carries the MAWB data — parties, routing, goods, and charges — in the IATA Cargo-IMP format. The corresponding message for house waybills is the FHL (Freight House Manifest), which lists each HAWB within the consolidation.
An airline can reject an FWB with an FNA (Freight Not Accepted) response if mandatory fields are missing or malformatted. Validate your FWB at /fwb-validator before you transmit to catch these errors in seconds.