Pan American World Airways teacher, Vol. XIV, No. 4, April 1958

              April 1958
Published by Pan American World Airways
VOL. XIV, No. 4
CLIPPER CARGO HELPS TO GET THE WORLD'S WORK DONE
by George Gardner
If flu serum is needed in South America, and the source of supply is in New York City, delivery by air is the obvious solution.
But this is only one spectacular mission of Clipper Cargo. There also are routine day in and day out uses of air express and air freight which make no head lines, but which are vital to world trade, and which in 1957 added up to a total of some 60,000 tons, on the Clippers alone.
All air lines transport air cargo, and a few carry nothing but cargo. An established part of the air transportation industry is the cargo forwarding business. Firms specializing in this service arrange for shipments, booking the cargo space, combining small shipments from different customers into larger consignments to reduce cost, preparing the papers for shipping and for clearing across international boundaries, arranging for delivery at the airport, notifying consignees that shipments are en route, arranging for delivery in the city of destination, collecting for the transportation, insurance and any other charges involved, and paying the carriers, insurance companies and others.
To mention just a few of the hundreds of commodities which have traveled by air, representatives of the animal kingdom have ranged from baby chicks to baby elephants; queen bees to race horses; echidnas to tar-siers. (An echidna is an anteater, and cousin to the aardvark. A tarsier is an East Indian mammal related to the lemurs, both of which are related to monkeys, but somewhat distantly.) Art objects take to the air, and so do electronic data processing machines, or “electronic brains”. Huge crank shafts, for ship’s engines have been loaded aboard Clippers, so have complete sets of fixtures for retail stores. Newspapers travel every day. Magazines, and in some cases newspapers too, hurry overseas in the form of plates or mats to be put on printing presses at locations nearer to the readers.
All of which suggests with considerable urgency that a teacher planning a transportation unit needs full information about air cargo.
Advantages of Air Cargo
The advantages of air cargo arise from the speed of the airplane.
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There are limitations too, and these arise from the basic fact that it costs more to move a pound of anything through the air than it does to move it on the surface of the land or water. So you don’t hear of iron ore, grain or lumber being delivered by air (except that a small sample might, and frequently does, get that treatment) and one guiding principle is that articles light in weight and high in value are very likely to be excellent candidates for air shipment.
But that’s only part of it, and you’ll find some heavy, bulky and relatively less expensive items moving by air, because another consideration is urgent need. If a ship is tied to a pier in Rio de Janeiro, disabled because it has a broken crank shaft, its crew drawing pay and eating meals, the days slipping away when it might be at sea earning revenue by carry-
ing coffee to the United States but for the disabled engine, it is obvious that the shipping company finds it advantageous to ship a new crank shaft by air from whatever place it may be available. The company cannot afford to use any slower means of transportation in this emergency.
For a long list of shipments, the cost of shipping by air is less than by surface as a matter of routine. The reasons for this are various — a leading one is that air shipments in general require less crating, less handling and re-handling, are less likely to be damaged or stolen so that insurance rates are usually lower.
Example: Dresses shipped by air may be placed on hangars and hung on rods inside the aircraft. This not only does away with packaging, thus eliminating the cost of carrying the weight of the packaging, but also saves the labor, time and expense that
HORSES FLY—Thoroughbred race horses are well known to the Clipper Cargo handlers. Travelling by air, the highly-strung animals get to their destinations before they have a
chance to get upset or bored.