There are many ways to transport cargo by air, including scheduled flights, charter flights, centralized consignment, and air express delivery.
Airliner Transport refers to flights that fly regularly on fixed routes. This type of aircraft has fixed departure stations, arrival stations, and transit stations. Generally, airlines use mixed passenger and cargo aircraft. Some larger airlines also have all-cargo flights on certain routes.
Chartered Carrier Transport can be divided into two forms: full charter and partial charter. Full charter refers to a mode of transport in which an airline rents the entire aircraft to the lessee according to the conditions and rates agreed in advance, and ships cargo from one or several airports to the designated destination. It is suitable for transporting bulk cargo. Partial charter refers to the joint chartering of an entire aircraft by several air freight forwarding companies or shippers, or the charter company subletting the space of the entire aircraft to several air freight forwarding companies. Partial charter is suitable for the transportation of cargo that is more than 1 ton but less than a full aircraft. The freight rate is lower than that of scheduled flights, but the transportation time is longer than that of scheduled flights.
The centralized air consignment method is a method of transportation in which an air freight forwarding company combines several batches of separately shipped goods into one batch and consigns them to an airline company, fills out a master bill and ships the goods to the same destination station. The agent of the air freight forwarding company at the destination station is responsible for receiving the goods, declaring customs, and distributing the goods to the consignees. This consignment method can strive for lower freight rates and is more commonly used in air transportation. Air Express Service is currently the fastest mode of transportation in international air transportation. It is different from air freight and air mail. Instead, there is an organization specializing in this business that works closely with airlines and assigns special personnel to deliver urgent items between shippers, airports, and consignees at the fastest speed. It is particularly suitable for urgent delivery and is called “Desk to Desk Express Service.”