Career in Air Freight

By Institute For Career Research

Air express transportation, operation, and management. You can play a vital role in the new international business world. Every day, thousands of airlines carry loads of cargo in their holds to destinations throughout the world. Today the air express industry has jobs for mechanics, maintenance workers, computer specialists, office personnel and clerks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Institute For Career Research
• Release date: Dec 13, 2009
• ISBN: 9781458080691

Book preview

Introduction

Joe garner (not his real name) runs a company in Houston, Texas, which makes aluminum parts for an equipment manufacturer, also in Houston. The other company in turn supplies chips for a leading Korean maker of computers and other electronic equipment.

Joe's company, Conmark, is under intense pressure to produce more and more parts for the company in Houston which in turn is hard pressed to meet the demands of its Korean electronics client.

Demand for personal computers, cellular phones and similar products is propelling companies at breakneck speeds. Garner's company, like other suppliers, works closely with Consolidated Electric, which provides weekly summaries by computer on which parts are required.

But the problem is that Consolidated has not as yet approved a Houston company to do the plating and chemical cleaning for the key parts that Conmark makes. So Garner must ship many of its parts by air to Arizona where they can be plated or cleaned by a company on Consolidated's approved list. His company, Conmark, pays a premium for shipping air freight but it is glad to do so.

And so the story goes. Many companies, suppliers and parts manufacturers must ship the fastest way to meet the intense deadlines which are commonplace now in American industry - and air freight, also known as air express, is the quickest way of all to ship.

Every day, thousands of airlines, flying out of dozens of airfields throughout the United States, carry loads of cargo in their holds to destinations all over the country and indeed throughout the world. And thousands of air express carriers, such as Cannonball in Chicago, advertise guaranteed delivery of freight by the following day for all materials that it picks up. The shipper may have to pay a premium for such swift service, but in many cases, such as the situation of the intense pressure to ship out parts described above, it is happy to do so. Also, there are hundreds of companies which supply highly perishable food stuffs - fruits and vegetables, meat, fish and other commodities to distant destinations, which must arrive in the quickest way possible to keep their freshness.

Where companies are seeking to hold down their inventories of costly parts and equipment, they know that by using air freight, they can order the exact number of components required and still be assured of receiving the goods in time.

This explains why in recent years the amount of air freight shipped annually in the United States has expanded to over 12 million ton miles, an increase of roughly 4 million ton miles of cargo from just a few years ago. A ton mile is one short ton carried one mile. Since 1930 which was the first year airliners began