20th century in the late 1930s at
Berlin Tempelhof Airport during the
Berlin Blockade in 1948 The first cargo flight took place on the 7 November 1910 in the U.S. between
Dayton and
Columbus in
Ohio.
Philip Orin Parmelee piloted a
Wright Model B aeroplane 65 miles (105 km) carrying a package of 200 pounds of silk for the opening of a store. Newspaper clippings quoted the
Wright brothers as stating he covered the distance in 66 minutes, but the flight was officially recorded at 57 minutes, a world speed record at the time. It was the first "cargo only" flight solely for the transport of goods; the first flight commissioned by a client, and the first example of multimodal air transport, since the pieces of silk were transported by car from Columbus aerodrome to the store. The world's first official airmail flight by airplane took place on 18 February 1911, at a large exhibition in the
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh,
British India. The organizer of the aviation display,
Walter Windham, was able to secure permission from the postmaster general in India to operate an airmail service in order to generate publicity for the exhibition and to raise money for charity. This first airmail flight was piloted by
Henri Pequet, who flew 6,500 letters a distance of 13 km (8.1 mi), from
Allahabad to
Naini—the nearest station on the
Bombay-Calcutta line to the exhibition. The aircraft used was a
Humber-Sommer biplane with about fifty horsepower (37 kW), and it made the journey in thirteen minutes. The world's first scheduled airmail post service took place in the
United Kingdom between the
London suburb of
Hendon, and the
Postmaster General's office in
Windsor, Berkshire, on September 9, 1911. It was part of the celebrations for
King George V's coronation and at the suggestion of
Windham, who based his proposal on the successful experiment he had overseen in India. The service ran for just under a month, transporting 35 bags of mail in 16 flights. In the early 1920s, air cargo developed rapidly because numerous entrepreneurs realized aircraft could move high value and low volume consignments much faster than the railroads and shipping companies. The first scheduled flight from
London to
Paris in 1919 had only one passenger, but carried leather for a shoe manufacturer and
grouse for a restaurant. Cinema
films were also a frequent consignment: original news’ bulletins were first carried to a central laboratory to make copies, and then distributed by air throughout Europe for their release in cinemas. Although there were a few attempts to organize
air freight airlines from the 1920s on, the first commercial airlines that were all-cargo did not emerge until after
World War II.
World War II In 1945, at a conference in
Havana, 57 airlines formed the
International Air Transport Association. In 1948, Berlin was jointly controlled by the
Western Allies and
Soviet Union, although the Soviet Union held the area surrounding the city and thus land access. During the
Berlin Blockade, this land access was closed, and an airlift remained the only option to get increasingly urgent deliveries of food, coal, and other supplies to
West Berlin. Over 330 days to 12 May 1949 a total of 2.26 million tons of cargo were airlifted to Berlin, an average of 6,800 tons a day, 80% by the US and 20% by the UK.
Post-World War II Although freight traffic developed modestly, reaching only 800,000 tonnes worldwide by the mid-1950s, the world economy was hitting its post-World War II stride.
Germany and
Japan were emerging from their period of purgatory and were poised to take the world of business by storm, the United States was approaching the height of its economic dominance, and Western Europe had recovered from the war. In 1968,
Boeing launched the four engine
747, the first
wide-body aircraft. The 747 was the first aircraft capable of transporting full
pallets in the cargo hold, revolutionizing the air cargo industry. Despite widespread hopes for a vibrant industry, for decades the air freight sector did not grow as expected and remained a very small part of total air traffic. For much of the first five post-war decades, most carriers saw it as a secondary activity, although there had always been specialized cargo airlines. Some passenger airlines have found the practice of carrying belly cargo to be a highly lucrative enterprise; in fact, it is estimated that 50% of all air freight is moved in this way, to the point where it has lessened the demand for dedicated large cargo aircraft. Cargo emerged as a solid pillar of the industry in the 1990s. The catalysts for the renewed growth in the sector were the express parcel carriers, typified by
FedEx,
DHL,
PostNL, and
UPS, and changes in practices in the manufacturing sector. In 1992, FedEx sent software on computer disks to thousands of customers, allowing them to track shipments from their own workstations.
21st century Boeing 777, a
UPS Boeing 747-400, and a
DHL tail cargo planes at
Cologne Bonn Airport in 2016 by weight landed The rise of internet in the years that followed contributed to increase the reliability and accessibility to the air cargo industry. Most airlines now offer to their customers real-time flight status and the booking and tracking options. In addition, the industry is adopting
electronic procedures, such as the electronic
air waybill, to reduce the amount of paper documentation accompanying each shipment and increasing the security and safety of the transportation. Many retailers are making an effort to integrate the air cargo delivery process with their customer service offering to respond to increasing consumer pressure. An industry expert estimates that 15-20 tonnes of air cargo is worth 30-40 economy passenger seats, when both are on passenger planes. However, with the exception of the integrators (FedEx, UPS, DHL and TNT) the air cargo industry continues to suffer as the by-product 'poor-relation' of the passenger business. In 2017, the
IATA observed a 9% rise in freight
tonne kilometers: air cargo demand is strong due to
industrial production and
global trade growth above expansion of
e-commerce, outpacing capacity as available tonne kilometers grew by 3%.