Air Waybill Validator
Paste an air waybill number to check its modulo-7 check digit and see what each part means. There is also a check you can do without this page at all — read on.
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No air waybill ever ends in 7, 8 or 9
The check digit is an unweighted modulo-7 calculation: take the seven-digit serial, divide it by seven, and the remainder is the check digit. Nothing is weighted, nothing alternates — it really is that simple.
Which produces a fact you can use with no tool at all: a remainder from division by seven is always between 0 and 6. A number ending in 7, 8 or 9 cannot be a valid air waybill, whatever the airline, whatever the serial. Scanning a column of numbers for a last digit above six will find a class of transcription errors in seconds.
The worked example
Serial 1234567 divided by seven gives 176366 remainder 5, so the
check digit is 5 and the complete number is 176-1234567-5. That is the example
given in the published rule, and it is the fixture our tests are built on.
What this tool does not do
Tell you which airline issued it. The prefix-to-carrier table is maintained by IATA and is not published openly, and a table assembled from unverified sources would give confidently wrong answers about real shipments. The prefix is shown; the identification is left to you.
It also cannot tell you whether the consignment exists. A number can be perfectly formed and never have been issued — the arithmetic proves the transcription, not the shipment.
Every check this tool runs (6 rules)
AWB-F01 Must be eleven digits
An air waybill number is exactly eleven digits: a three-digit IATA airline prefix, a seven-digit serial, and one check digit. Hyphens and spaces are presentation only.
Fix: Check for a digit lost in transcription, or for a leading zero a spreadsheet removed.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
AWB-C01 Check digit does not match
The check digit is the remainder when the seven-digit serial is divided by seven. A mismatch means at least one digit is wrong, and the number will be rejected at the first system that checks it.
Fix: Re-read the number from the document; the expected check digit is given here.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
AWB-C02 Ends in 7, 8 or 9
Because the check digit is a remainder modulo seven, it can only be 0 to 6. A number ending in 7, 8 or 9 cannot be a valid air waybill under any airline — no arithmetic required, and it is the fastest possible sanity check on a batch.
Fix: The last digit is wrong, or the number is not an air waybill at all.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
AWB-P01 Airline prefix not resolved to a name
The first three digits identify the issuing carrier, but the prefix-to-airline table is maintained by IATA and is not published openly. Rather than guessing from an unverified list, this tool reports the prefix and leaves the identification to you.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
AWB-S01 Placeholder serial
The serial is all zeros or all the same digit. Such numbers pass the arithmetic — 0000000 divided by seven leaves nothing — but they are almost always test data or a template that was never filled in.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
AWB-V01 Valid air waybill number
Eleven digits with a check digit that matches the modulo-seven remainder of the serial.
Source: Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation
The algorithm is taken from Australian Border Force — Air Waybill Number Validation, which states the rule and gives the worked example above.