In today’s competitive aviation market, cargo represents an important part of an airline’s revenue and profit. The advantage of using belly hold is that the flight operates on a regular schedule in two directions and that, any revenue from cargo that has a higher revenue than the variable cost, will contribute to the bottom line.

However, not all destinations that are served on passenger aircraft are good cargo destinations, like for example touristic destinations. In the same way, some of the destinations with high cargo demand do not have enough belly capacity to accommodate the demand. Therefore, freighters are very important in this industry, representing around 50% of all cargo carried. Other operators handle cargo only traffic very often on charters, regular or ad hoc.

Only 1% of total freight worldwide is being transported via air but it does represent around 35% of the total value of trade due to the high value density of the products. Products are sent by air because of urgency, high value, perishability, security and high cost of inventory.

There are different types of airlines carrying cargo:

• Airlines carrying passengers with only belly hold cargo.
• Freighter operators carrying only cargo.
• Mixed airlines operating both passenger and freighter aircraft.
• Integrators with their own fleets of cargo freighters.

Job opportunities are wide and various and will include:

• Route planning & optimization.
• Revenue & yield management.
• Cargo operations overseeing handling and trucking.
• Sales & marketing: liaising with forwarders and GSSA’s.
• Maintenance supervising.
• Flight operations.
• Opportunities with airlines will often include overseas travel and postings.

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