AIR CARG O WEEK


CARGO TECHNOLOGY THE TAIL END


FROM WOODEN CRATES TO HIGH-TECH SMART


A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ULD BY AIRWAY BILL CONTAINERS


“Pan American World Airways was one of the first airlines to adopt palletised loading using Unit Load Devices (ULD).”


O


n December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers


flew 120 cheered feet and in 12


seconds - basically the length of a lazy whale. Gravity was annoyed, mankind


pigeons


everywhere began to worry. Just seven years after this momentous event, the first airfreight shipment took to the skies in 1910. A US department store flew 200Ibs of silk 65 miles from Dayton to Columbus as a publicity stunt. The Model B plane, invented by the Wright Brothers,


raced against an express


train to see which transport mode would be quickest. The plane won easily, showing that airfreight was a viable shipping option. The potential of air for moving goods was


further highlighted in 1911, when the UK ran a month-long trial to deliver mail by air as part of the Coronation celebrations for King George V. The flights flew 21 miles, from London to Windsor Castle. The experiment lasted for just 16 flights, due to constant severe bad weather. Early planes were ill- equipped to withstand such conditions but the experiment showed what was possible. The silk and mail taking part in these


ground-breaking movements were loaded and unloaded manually and with no concession to the new mode of transport. In the 1910s, all cargo was loaded by hand because there were no standardised containers or machines for the job. Workers had to lift, carry and stack


goods individually onto ships, carts, railway wagons and canal boats. It was slow, tiring work but the technology for cranes, forklifts or unitised loads hadn’t


yet been widely


developed or adopted. This bulk-loading of individual items was a


time-consuming and labour-intensive process which often resulted in damage to cargo.


Four decades later Pan American World Airways was one of the first airlines to adopt palletised loading using Unit Load Devices (ULD) specifically for their DC-7C aircraft in 1955. This involved loading multiple containers onto a pallet, which could then be loaded onto the plane using


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