How Airline Freight Works

Just about every passenger flight is carrying some freight along with the passengers and their baggage. The U.S. Postal Service alone leases space on 15,000 of the approximately 25,000 scheduled passenger flights each day. Commercial airlines make about 5 to 10 percent of their revenue from hauling freight.

When a package ends up on your flight, airlines usually consolidate it with other packages and freight and pack them into special containers that fit in the storage area under the passenger compartment. For instance, a Boeing 747-400 (one of the largest passenger planes) can hold 416 passengers along with 5,330 cubic feet (150 m³) of cargo. That's about as much cargo as can fit in two semi-truck trailers.

Most of the freight gets stored in special containers shaped to fit themselves to the inside of the cargo hold. Some of the freight is also put on pallets, and loose items may end up in any open spaces that remain.

In "Combi" mode, the 747-400 will reserve some of the passenger compartments to store freight. In this mode, the plane can carry more than 10,000 cubic feet (283 m³) of cargo and 266 passengers.

And it can hold a lot more cargo when configured as a dedicated cargo plane.

Shipping companies like FedEx and UPS own many different types of cargo planes. One of the larger ones is the Boeing 747. When configured as a freighter, the Boeing 747-400 can hold about 26,000 cubic feet (736 m³) of cargo. That's about as much as five semi trucks can haul.

The 747-400 can hold 30 pallets of goods on the main level. The pallets are 96 by 125 inches (2.4 m by 3.2 m) and up to 120 inches (3.05 m) tall. For shipping horses, there are special containers called airstables that connect to pallets and fit in the cargo hold. On the lower level, the plane can hold another five pallets along with 14 specially fitted containers, each up to 64 inches (1.6-m) tall. All of these goods are loaded through hatches on the side of the plane.

Additionally, the plane can also open up its nose for the loading of large or irregularly shaped cargo.

Since there often isn't room to drive a forklift truck into the plane to load the pallets, the load floor has electric rollers. Once a pallet enters through the doorway, the electric rollers move it to the front or rear of the cargo hold.

But for hauling really big cargo, you need a super transporter.

This is a class of plane designed purely for moving huge stuff. If you need to transport a helicopter or even a plane, you need a Super Transporter.

This plane includes a huge cargo area located above the cockpit, allowing freight to fill almost the full length of the plane. The giant door on the front of the cargo hold opens wide enough to get completely out of the way — if an object will fit in the plane, it will fit through the door.

This plane can haul about 47 tons of cargo. That's a lot, but not enough to transport, say, a military tank. A tank can weigh 65 tons or more. For that, you need an even bigger transport plane.

The world's biggest transport plane was the Antonov AN-225. With a cargo capacity of more than 250 tons, this plane could haul not just one, but three or four military tanks. The plane had a wingspan almost the length of a football field, and its cargo hold could fit 80 cars.

This plane originated to carry the Russian version of the space shuttle. With plans for the shuttle halted, the plane remained grounded from the early 1990s on. The plane underwent restoration and made its first test flight on May 7, 2001. It wound up being destroyed in 2022. 

Now we've seen planes that haul everything from the postcard you sent your grandmother to battle tanks. You really can ship anything!