Before discussing the today's topic, Let's bring a breif on Air Freight.
Airfreight is the transfer and shipment of goods via an air carrier, which may be charter or commercial. Such shipments travel out of commercial and passenger aviation gateways to anywhere planes can fly and land. The express shipping choices of air freight make it a valuable one for coordinating time-sensitive freight to almost anywhere in the world. This can be particularly beneficial for smaller and mid-sized companies as it allows them to experience in international trade expeditiously and effectively. Shipping by air also offers the advantage of a high level of security as airport controls over cargo are tightly managed. Used in conjunction with other forms of shipping, like marine, rail, and ground, air freight became widely utilized as one of the central delivery options in importing and exporting at the beginning of the 20th Century. Expanding exponentially as an industry during the expansion of trade networks and markets in the last 40 years, air freight is now regarded as an efficient means to ship nationally and internationally. . In expansion, they have a great number of wheels, a great stability during the landing as well as an ability to land on less prepared tracks, and have several large doors for a comfortable and efficient entry and exit of goods.
Nowadays air transportation, both cargo and passengers, has the aim to reduce the impact it has on the environment. Presently, aircraft models are known with new materials, hybrids and powered by other types of energy, such as solar or electric.
Do you know when we need Air Transportation and what type of goods are tranported by Air?
Let's dive!
As we have said, air transport is not suitable for all types of merchandise. Generally the goods that are usually transferred through this means of transport are the following:
When we are looking for the different types of cargo transported by air, they fall into two main groups:
one is General Cargo and the other is Special Cargo. Special Cargo is then divided up into smaller specialized sub-groups. It is these specialized sub-groups we will take a much closer look at further on.
General cargo are items that do not fall into the Special Cargo categories and that do not require any extra precautions or special handling during air transport. These types of items are retail and most consumer goods, dry goods, hardware, textiles, and more.
Special cargo is where things get a little more complicated. Special cargo are goods that, due to their nature, weight, dimensions or value, may have specific conditions including packaging, labelling, documentation and handling through the transport chain. The transportation of these goods are addressed through specific regulations that must be followed when preparing, offering, accepting and handling this cargo. Items include dangerous goods, live animals, perishable cargo, wet cargo, time and temperature sensitive products among others.
The IATA regulation distinguishes three types of dangerous goods: prohibited, dangerous and unrestricted. When we talk about dangerous ones, for which a UN coding criterion is used, there are those that can be transported by passenger plane and those that can only be transported in cargo planes.
Dangerous prohibited goods: We are speaking about substances or goods that can explode, react dangerously, catch fire, emit toxic or corrosive or flammable gases under normal conditions of transport.
Unrestricted goods: If an item or substance does not meet any of the criteria for Risk Classes or Divisions and is not on the Dangerous Goods List, it can be transported without restrictions.
Dangerous goods: Substances which transported, are capable of putting health, safety, property or the environment at risk, and that are classified in accordance with some risk criteria.
