Air cargo is any property carried or to be carried in an aircraft. Air cargo comprises air freight, air express and airmail.
Different cargo can be transported by passenger, cargo or combi aircraft:
Passenger aircraft use the spare volume in the airplane's baggage hold (the "belly") that is not being used for passenger luggage—a common practice used by passenger airlines, who additionally transport cargo on scheduled passenger flights. Cargo can also be transported in the passenger cabin as hand-carry by an “on-board courier”. This practice can often be used to cross subsidise loss-making passenger routes that would otherwise be uneconomical to operate. A passenger aircraft can also be used as a preighter in which the entire passenger cabin is temporarily dedicated to carrying freight.
Cargo aircraft are dedicated for the job—they carry freight on the main deck and in the belly by means of nose-loading or side loading.
Combi aircraft carry cargo on part of the main deck, before or after a passengers’ section, with side loading, and in the belly.
The first cargo flight took place on the 7 November 1910 in the US, between Dayton and Columbus, Ohio. Philip Orin Parmelee piloted a Wright Model B aeroplane 65 miles (105 km) carrying a package of 200 pounds of silk for the opening of a store. Newspaper clippings quoted the Wright brothers as stating he covered the distance in 66 minutes, but the flight was officially recorded at 57 minutes, a world speed record at the time. It was the first “cargo only” flight solely for the transport of goods; the first flight commissioned by a client, and the first example of multimodal air transport, since the pieces of silk were transported by car from Columbus aerodrome to the store.
The world's first official airmail flight by airplane took place on 18 February 1911, at a large exhibition in the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh, British India. The organizer of the aviation display, Walter Windham, was able to secure permission from the postmaster general in India to operate an airmail service in order to generate publicity for the exhibition and to raise money for charity.
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The units of measurement in transportation describes the unit of measurement used to express various transportation quantities, as used in statistics, planning, and their related applications. The currently popular units are: kilometre (km) or kilometer is a metric unit used, outside the US, to measure the length of a journey; the international statute mile (mi) is used in the US; 1 mi = 1.609344 km nautical mile is rarely used to derive units of transportation quantity.
A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of cargo rather than passengers. Such aircraft usually do not incorporate passenger amenities and generally feature one or more large doors for loading cargo. Freighters may be operated by civil passenger or cargo airlines, by private individuals or by the armed forces of individual countries.
An airline is a company that provides air transport services for traveling passengers and/or freight. Airlines use aircraft to supply these services and may form partnerships or alliances with other airlines for codeshare agreements, in which they both offer and operate the same flight. Generally, airline companies are recognized with an air operating certificate or license issued by a governmental aviation body. Airlines may be scheduled or charter operators. The first airline was the German airship company DELAG, founded on November 16, 1909.