Air Cargo Charter Explained: Load, Aircraft, Airport, Timeline

Air cargo charter means hiring an entire aircraft to move one consignment, on a routing and a timetable you set rather than one an airline publishes. It is how a 40 tonne transformer, a grounded aircraft's spare engine or a batch of temperature controlled vaccines reaches its destination when scheduled freight cannot take the shape, the weight or the deadline.

This guide explains the mechanism rather than the sales pitch. One chain drives every charter decision: the load and its dimensions decide the aircraft, the aircraft decides which airports can accept it, and those airports decide the timeline. Understand that chain and you will know within minutes whether charter is the right answer for your shipment.

What air cargo charter actually means

A charter is a contract for the whole aircraft. You buy capacity, not a booking on someone else's flight, so the aircraft flies where your consignment needs to go and departs when your consignment is ready. Nothing is consolidated with other shippers, nothing waits for a connection, and no transit hub decides your priority in a queue you cannot see.

Two arrangements sit behind that contract, and EU Regulation 1008/2008 defines both. Article 2(25) describes a wet lease, where the aircraft is operated under the air operator certificate of the lessor. Article 2(24) describes a dry lease, operated under the certificate of the lessee. Almost every ad hoc cargo charter uses the first: the operator's crew, the operator's certificate, your cargo.

Fliteline is a broker rather than an airline. We hold no aircraft and no fleet, which is the point of using us. A broker with no metal of its own to fill has no reason to steer you towards the wrong aeroplane, and can approach the operators whose aircraft, certificates and route permits genuinely suit the load in front of you.

The chain that decides everything

Every serious cargo charter conversation follows the same order, and skipping a step produces unworkable quotes. Weight and dimensions come first, because they eliminate most of the world fleet immediately. Aircraft type comes second. Airport comes third, because a type can only use runways, pavements and equipment that suit it. Timeline comes last, being an output of the first three rather than an input.

Shippers usually start at the wrong end. A request that opens with a date and a city pair tells a broker almost nothing, because the honest answer still depends on whether the load fits through a door and sits within a floor loading limit. A request that opens with a packing list, piece weights and three dimensions per piece can often be answered the same working day.

1. 01Load: gross weight, heaviest single piece, and three dimensions per piece.
2. 02Aircraft: the smallest type whose door, floor and payload limits all accept it.
3. 03Airport: runway, pavement, handling equipment, customs hours and slot availability.
4. 04Timeline: crew duty, permits, slots and handling added together, not assumed away.

Matching the load to the aircraft

Payload is rarely the binding constraint. Doors and floors are. A consignment weighing 18 tonnes but standing 3.5 metres tall will not enter a Boeing 747-400F through the main deck side door, which Atlas Air publishes as a clear opening 3.4 metres wide by 3.1 metres high. The weight was never the problem, and quoting on weight alone hides that fact until loading day.

Three broad classes cover most requirements. Narrowbody freighters carry palletised general cargo on short and medium sectors, and Boeing states the 737-800BCF takes up to 23.9 tonnes across twelve main deck pallet positions and 141.4 cubic metres. Widebody nose loading freighters handle long single pieces and heavy volumes, with the 747-400F rated at 112,900 kg maximum revenue payload across thirty main deck positions.

Ramp freighters exist for what neither can swallow. Antonov publishes a 120,000 kg payload for the An-124-100, in a cargo cabin 36.5 metres long, 6.4 metres wide and 4.4 metres high, loaded through nose and rear ramps at apron level. Very few such aircraft exist, so lead times are longer.

That distinction matters beyond size. A ramp aircraft can be loaded by driving or winching cargo in at close to apron level, so a bulldozer goes aboard without a crane. Conventional freighters need a main deck loader, because the main deck sits several metres above the apron. If the destination station has no loader, your aircraft choice has changed even though the cargo has not.

Why the airport sets the clock

Runway length and pavement strength come first. A loaded heavy freighter imposes a pavement classification the apron and taxiways must be rated to accept, and a runway that comfortably takes a narrowbody may not take a widebody at full fuel and full payload. Airports publish this data in their aeronautical information, and a broker checks it before offering a routing rather than after the contract is signed.

Slots come next. The IATA Worldwide Airport Slot Guidelines use three levels: Level 1, where capacity generally meets demand at all times; Level 2, where congestion in some periods can be resolved by schedule adjustment agreed with a facilitator; and Level 3, where demand significantly exceeds capacity and every movement needs an allocated slot. At a Level 3 airport an ad hoc cargo flight is a slot request, not a decision. Schiphol routes those requests through Slot Coordination Netherlands.

Ground clearance finishes the job. ICAO Annex 9 on facilitation sets the standards states apply to clearing aircraft and cargo, but every authority implements them with its own opening hours, documents and inspection practice. A flight landing at 02:00 into a station whose customs office opens at 08:00 has saved nobody six hours, and the shipper pays for that gap in downtime.

1. —Runway length, width and pavement strength for the type at operating weight.
2. —Ground handling: main deck loader, forklift capacity, crane access, hardstand.
3. —Slot availability, plus any night curfew or noise restriction.
4. —Customs and border hours, and any veterinary or pharmaceutical inspection capability.
5. —Overflight and landing permits for the operator's registration along the whole route.

When charter is the right answer

Charter earns its cost in a fairly narrow set of situations, and an honest broker says so when yours is not one of them. The recurring cases are an aircraft on ground waiting for a part, cargo too large for any scheduled hold, a temperature controlled consignment that cannot risk a transit stop, a project shipment into an airport with no freight service, and relief flights.

Consolidated scheduled freight usually wins on the opposite profile: the consignment palletises, the deadline has days of slack, the route is well served and the value does not justify exclusive use of an aircraft. Splitting a load across two scheduled widebody departures is often faster in practice than waiting for permits, a slot and a positioning leg for one charter.

1. —AOG: a grounded aircraft costs more per day than the flight that fixes it.
2. —Oversized or heavy: one piece exceeds any scheduled hold or door.
3. —Dangerous goods a scheduled carrier will not accept in its network.
4. —Pharmaceuticals that cannot sit on a transit apron.
5. —Destinations with no scheduled freight capacity, including project and relief sites.

Dangerous goods, pharma and liability

Regulated cargo changes the shortlist of operators, not just the paperwork. ICAO Annex 18 governs the safe transport of dangerous goods by air, with the operational detail in the Technical Instructions, ICAO Doc 9284, which the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations restate for industry use. Declare the UN number, class and packing group at enquiry stage, because acceptance policy varies between operators and some decline a whole class outright.

States can grant an exemption from the Technical Instructions where there is extreme urgency, where other forms of transport are inappropriate, or where full compliance would be contrary to the public interest. An exemption removes a regulatory obstacle and nothing more. It does not oblige any operator to carry the load, and it is not a diplomatic clearance, a traffic right or an acceptance from the aerodrome, each of which is applied for separately.

Pharmaceutical work runs on a different rulebook. The EU guidelines on Good Distribution Practice, 2013/C 343/01, require medicinal products to be transported within the conditions the manufacturer specifies, and require that compliance be demonstrable. In practice that means validated packaging or an active container, continuous temperature monitoring, and a ground plan for every stop.

Liability sits apart from all of it. Article 22(3) of the Montreal Convention caps a carrier's liability for cargo at 26 special drawing rights per kilogramme, raised from 22 SDR with effect from 28 December 2024. If your consignment is worth more than that per kilo, insure it properly rather than relying on the convention.

What a broker needs to quote

A useful quote is a function of the information behind it. Give a broker the list below and you will get aircraft options, a realistic timeline and a firm figure. Give only a weight and a city pair and you will get a caveat, because the answer genuinely is not knowable yet and any number offered would be a guess dressed up as a price.

Expect the timeline to be dominated by things nobody controls from a desk: positioning the aircraft to the loading airport, crew duty limits, overflight and landing permits, slot allocation at coordinated airports, and ground handling at both ends. Some charters depart within hours of a signed contract. Others take days because one permit is outstanding. Fliteline publishes no rate card, because work priced load by load has no fixed rate.

1. 01Gross weight, piece count, and the heaviest single piece.
2. 02Length, width and height of every piece, plus centre of gravity if awkward.
3. 03Packing: pallets, crates, skids or loose, and whether pieces can be tilted.
4. 04Origin and destination, as airports or as addresses if trucking is involved.
5. 05Ready time at origin, and the deadline that matters at destination.
6. 06Dangerous goods classification, temperature range, and customs or security status.
7. 07Loading equipment at each end, and commercial value for insurance.

• —The load decides the aircraft, the aircraft decides the airport, and the airport decides the timeline.
• —Doors and floor limits rule out more aircraft than payload does, so send dimensions per piece, not just weight.
• —Ramp freighters load near apron level, while conventional freighters need a main deck loader many stations lack.
• —At a Level 3 slot coordinated airport an ad hoc cargo flight is a request, not a decision you can make.
• —Montreal Convention Article 22(3) caps cargo liability at 26 SDR per kilogramme, so insure high value loads separately.
• —Charter wins on oversized, urgent or regulated freight, and loses when cargo palletises and the deadline has slack.

Ready to move a load

Send the weights, dimensions and dates, and our cargo team will come back with aircraft options and a firm price. No rate card, no guesswork, just the numbers for your load.