In air-cargo EDI, the master and the house travel as two different messages. The FWB — the electronic master air waybill message (Cargo-IMP names it “Air Waybill Data”) — carries the data of the master air waybill — one MAWB, its shipper, consignee, routing, weights, and charges. The FHL (house waybill / house-manifest message) carries the house waybills grouped under that master. Both exist in Cargo-IMP (FWB, FHL) and in the newer Cargo-XML equivalents (XFWB, XFHL).
One master, many houses
When a forwarder consolidates several shippers’ shipments under a single MAWB, the airline sees one master waybill; underneath it sit multiple HAWBs. The FWB describes the master the carrier actually flies. The FHL enumerates the houses inside it — one entry per HAWB, each with its own shipper, consignee, piece count, and weight.
With , you can capture and validate the master air waybill, and flag when it's a consolidation that needs an FHL.
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Why customs cares about the FHL
Advance cargo-information regimes — US ACAS, the EU’s ICS2, and similar programs — increasingly want data at the house level, because that is where the real shipper and consignee are. The master alone shows the forwarder-to-forwarder relationship; the house level shows who is actually shipping to whom. Missing or mismatched FHL data is a common cause of holds.
Versioning, briefly
Like the FWB (16 and 17), the FHL has its own versions — FHL/4 and FHL/5. A partner expecting one and sent the other can reject the message, so the version has to match what the receiver accepts. AWBGuru’s AWB data capture extracts both master and house data and can output the FWB and the FHL, keeping the house-level detail consistent with the master so a consolidation clears instead of being held.