Measured by the people who move the cargo.
CSQ is the independent performance standard for air cargo terminals. Operators assess themselves. Their forwarders, their customs brokers and an independent auditor decide the score.
Arrival
The clock starts on touchdown.
From the moment the gear touches, every hour is somebody's experience of your terminal. CSQ measures the part you control and separates it from the part you do not.
The sample
A score you cannot write yourself.
You name your customers. You lock the sample before the window opens. After that you do not touch it. They are invited independently, they answer independently, and you never see who said what.
Three readings
The same terminal, read three ways.
The operator
Assess yourself against the full instrument as often as you like. Recorded, reported back to you, and deliberately excluded from the rating so it cannot flatter the number.
Excluded from scoreYour customers
A locked sample of your forwarders and customs brokers, no smaller than the cycle minimum. Invited at midnight by email and WhatsApp, verified by one time code, answering on a phone between jobs.
Primary weightAn independent auditor
An accredited assessor who does not operate at your airport walks the same instrument on site. One reading, carrying real weight, because nothing you do can influence it.
IndependentThe gap
They rate themselves higher than you do.
That distance is the most useful number CSQ produces. It shows exactly where an operation and its reputation have come apart, and it is the first thing worth fixing.
Self against customer
Where the readings disagree.
Illustrative trace on the five point scale. Not the score of any named operator.
The instrument
One instrument. Two directions.
Parameters across four heads: infrastructure and facilities, security and safety, processes, and trade facilitation. Each answered twice, so a completed return carries 46 ratings.
International terminals rate export and import. Domestic terminals rate inbound and outbound. One instrument, so a terminal in Bengaluru and a terminal in Kochi are read identically.
Excellent to Poor, plus NA
Anything marked NA leaves the calculation rather than quietly dragging a category down.
Set per cycle
Question weights and market share both feed the roll-up, so an airport with two operators of very different size still compares honestly.
Opens on a low rating
Rate a parameter Fair or Poor and the instrument asks what went wrong, so every weak score arrives with a reason attached.
The cycle
How a cycle runs.
You build the list
Add or import your forwarders and customs brokers. No accounts exist yet. You then lock a sample no smaller than the cycle minimum.
The list is checked
The locked sample is approved automatically or reviewed first, depending on your account. Reviewers see every edit, who made it and when.
Invitations go out
At midnight on the opening date every sampled assessor gets an email and a WhatsApp message. One tap, one code, straight into the form.
Responses arrive
Assessors answer in one sitting or across several. Drafts save on their own. You watch the response rate climb without ever seeing an individual answer.
The score publishes
Sampling closes, the auditor reading lands, the roll-up runs. You get the score, the gap, every comment, and your position against the field.
The standard
Your score. Yours alone.
Confidential by design. Your rating and your benchmark position are shared with you and nobody else. Results are not made public at any stage of the exercise, so the standard is a tool for improvement rather than a league table.
Find out what they actually think.
Tell us the airport and the terminal. We set up the cycle, the sampling window and the question bank, and walk you through a complete return before anything goes live.