Looking at airway goods and the air cargo packaging it’s obvious we’re in for something similar with sea freights, though in a different dimension, also another sector of the freight business to be discussed with many promises.
It’s good to know that I have decided to merge airfreight packaging with solid breakbulk or general cargo packaging in this post. With that in mind, let’s start airfreights.
Typically, airfreights vary in weight and dimension, owing to the fact that the vast majority of these goods are often sensitive and fragile. some of which include perishables, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment, vehicles, spare parts, and machinery. These goods on the basis of airfreight are handled differently unlike sea freight, though packaged similarly as sea freight before they are moved into cargo bins and other airfreight unit load devices, which serve as a container.
Cargo bins for airfreight vary in dimension, which is based on the nature of the cargo to be shipped over a long distance. However, there are factors to be considered, and this has to do with the weight and size of the goods. With this, a unit load device to be deployed for a particular shipment need to be carefully sorted. And with that in mind, it’s important for us to have a better understanding of a unit load device (ULD).
So, let’s have it, a unit load device is a container or pallet used to load freight, luggage, and mail onto wide-body aircraft and specific narrow-body air-crafts. This loading device allows a large quantity of cargo to be bundled into a single unit.
Also in addition to that, it’s also important to know that a unit load device equally comes in pallet form made of rugged sheets of aluminum with rims designed to lock onto cargo net lug-sis widely used for cargoes that need not be refrigerated. However, this device also has additional features due to its flexibility in cargo handling. While cargoes that could be transported with this type of unit load device, includes factory products, processed food items, fruits parked in cartons, cases, or in crates.
Looking at the container type of the subject device, known as pods and cans are closed containers made of aluminum or a combination of Lexan (walls) and aluminum frame. These may have a built-in refrigeration unit, depending on the nature of goods to be transported. In practice, using a refrigerated type is advisable to transport perishable goods such as seafood coupled with other frozen goods. On the other hand, non-refrigerated containers can be used to ship non-perishable, noting a unit load device that is appropriate to ship such goods.
There are some heavy or massive cargoes that cannot be transported with the aid of the equipment mentioned above. As we wind down on air cargo packaging, it will be important to look at few sensitive areas, precisely the handling cost of massive goods and their nature, as regards transportation, however, such goods often attract special freight charges which will be discussed subsequently.
BREAK BULK CARGO
Our focus in this section is basically on solid goods owing to the fact that breakbulk cargoes consist of ‘Wet and Solid cargoes’, the latter are transported individually, either with the aid of crates, jumbo bags, sets or bundle and so on. These are general cargoes that will not fit in or utilize standard shipping containers or cargo bins. However, general cargoes are different from bulk shipping, this is because the latter is used for the shipping of petroleum products or grains.
Breakbulk cargo which includes construction equipment, manufacturing materials, oversized vehicles, boats, plants, and large engines are packaged in different ways.
Furthermore, palletize breakbulk are goods packaged with pallets to be shipped over long distances to enable proper handling, either in bags, rolls, or cartons. These include agricultural produce (grains), animal feed, sugar, flour, iron foil, cartons of industrial spare parts.
Breakbulk cargoes are equally packaged in cases or crates for easy handling. Which includes goods like manufacturing materials, large engines, and so on.
While other cargoes shipped as oversized goods are often shipped without the use of the above-mentioned equipment. It will be nice to discuss ‘solid breakbulk cargo’ in detail and that be in a separate post owing to the fact that this area of freight is massive, noting sea freight as an area that one could potentially cast its net and expect a huge return.
- I hope you found this article on ‘air cargo packaging’ helpful?
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