AIR CARG O WEEK
WORLD AIRPORTS
AIRFREIGHT’S EVOLUTION: IMPROVISATION TO AMBITIOUS SYSTEMISATION
THE HISTORY OF AIRFREIGHT AT AIRPORTS IS A STORY OF IMPROVISATION, AMBITION AND GRADUAL SYSTEMISATION, BEGINNING LONG BEFORE THE INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT IT TRULY EXISTED.
“From makeshift beginnings, air cargo proved itself both commercially promising and technologically transformative.”
lthough aviation’s earliest pioneers were already dreaming of moving goods by air at the turn of the twentieth century, scheduled air cargo services did not meaningfully emerge until the years immediately after the First World War. In those early days, the airport as we understand it today
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was still in gestation, and freight activities tended to piggyback on facilities intended primarily for adventurous passengers or for military operations. Yet even from those makeshift beginnings, air cargo proved itself both commercially promising and technologically transformative. The first recorded official airfreight flight took place on 7 November
1910, when a Wright Model B delivered around 90 kilograms of silk from Dayton to Columbus, Ohio. This flight, arranged as a publicity exercise, demonstrated the possibilities of moving small, high- value goods rapidly over distances that would have been slower or more cumbersome by rail. Early European efforts followed, with the first regularly scheduled air mail flights in the 1910s and early 1920s often carrying small parcels alongside letters. At many early aerodromes, there was no true freight terminal as such; cargo was stored in passenger sheds or military hangars, and loading tended to be a matter of strong backs and rudimentary equipment rather than any formal system.
First purpose-built airfreight terminals The world’s first purpose-built airfreight terminal is generally credited to the facilities developed in the late 1930s at airports such as Berlin Tempelhof and New York’s LaGuardia, both of which incorporated dedicated cargo buildings into their original designs. Tempelhof, opened in 1936, was particularly influential because it integrated all aspects of airport operations into a single monumental structure. Its freight and post facilities were not mere add-ons but carefully planned spaces with conveyors, sorting rooms and direct apron access to streamline the movement of goods. Although not a pure cargo terminal in the modern sense, it represented the first attempt to conceive airport freight handling as a professionalised, mechanised operation rather
than an improvised afterthought.
Meanwhile, LaGuardia’s 1940 air freight terminal - publicised as the world’s first fully commercial air cargo building - signalled the beginning of cargo infrastructure as an expected component of major airports. In the earliest era of airfreight, the design and construction of
most aircraft limited what could actually be carried. Loading and unloading were often awkward and physically demanding processes. Aircraft such as biplanes and early monoplanes had narrow cabin doors or small cargo hatches, sometimes requiring freight
to
be dismantled or repackaged so it could fit. Boxes, parcels and mailbags were typically carried aboard by hand, with ground staff forming human chains to pass items into the fuselage. Fragile goods were bundled in straw or cloth. There were no forklifts in widespread use at aerodromes until well
into the 1930s, and certainly no
mechanised loaders calibrated to aircraft floor heights. Pilots and mechanics themselves often helped with loading, partly to ensure weight and balance calculations were correct, but also because the entire ethos of early aviation demanded a hands-on familiarity with one’s machine. In the inter-war years, as airlines began flying converted bombers
or custom-built transports, the inside of an aircraft might contain simple anchor points, canvas straps and wood-slat floors intended to prevent cargo from shifting in flight. Yet efficiency remained elusive. Goods were weighed using basic scales in small wooden sheds. To move packages from an administrative office to the aircraft, workers might wheel them across grass on handcarts or even carry them manually across muddy fields in bad weather. Only the highest-value items - banknotes, jewellery, documents requiring rapid delivery, perishables such as flowers -justified the cost and inconvenience of air transport. The Second World War accelerated the development of airfreight
infrastructure more than any other factor. Military logistics demanded rapid, heavy air transport, and immense wartime investment in larger aircraft, paved runways and more sophisticated ground equipment created the conditions for civil air cargo to flourish afterwards. Cargo variants of the Douglas DC-3, the Curtiss C-46 and the massive C-54 Skymaster introduced innovations such as wide cargo doors, reinforced floors and, critically, higher payload capacity. Air
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