Air cargo charter, explained from the flight deck down
One aircraft, your freight, your schedule. This is the deep guide to cargo charter: what it costs by freighter type, how nose doors and floor limits decide what flies, why carmakers, film crews, surgeons and race teams all end up calling the same brokers, and how a mission comes together in hours. Written by people who charter these aircraft for a living.
No obligation. Fixed all-in cargo quotes, in writing.
The whole aircraft,
working for you
This guide answers every question the industry gets asked, what a cargo charter is, what it costs, what the three types of charter are, and goes where competitor pages stop: into ULDs, floor loading, dangerous goods, AOG economics and the aircraft themselves, from the Cessna Caravan to the Antonov An-124. Every figure is an honest market range; every route quote we issue is fixed and all-in.
The network,
or the whole aircraft
Cheaper, shared, hub-bound
Your pallets ride the airlines’ belly network on their timetable, sharing space and connecting through hubs. Right for small, flexible shipments.
Yours alone, point to point
The entire freighter dedicated to your shipment, departing when the cargo is ready, landing as close to the destination as a runway allows.
A freight department,
one message away
From first message to final mile
Weight, dimensions, nature of goods, deadline: send four facts and receive a flyable, fixed-price plan within the hour.
From request to wheels-up
in four steps
Tell Andreea your trip
Route, dates and how many are travelling, by WhatsApp or the quote form.
Receive a shortlist
A choice of aircraft, each with a fixed all-in price and why it suits your journey.
Confirm your aircraft
Andreea arranges the operator contract, crew, airport slots and ground transfers.
Step aboard
Arrive at a private terminal minutes before departure and fly on your schedule.
What a cargo charter is,
and when it beats everything else
A cargo charter is the exclusive hire of an entire aircraft to move freight on your route, on your schedule, with the full payload dedicated to your shipment. Unlike scheduled air freight, where your goods share belly space with passengers’ luggage and other shippers’ pallets and connect through hubs, a chartered freighter flies point to point, departs when your cargo is ready, and lands as close to the final destination as a runway allows. You control the routing, the timing and the handling; nothing gets bumped, co-loaded or rolled to tomorrow’s flight.
That control is why charter exists at the top of the logistics pyramid. Air cargo as a whole moves less than 1 % of world trade by tonnage yet roughly 35 % of it by value, and charter is the sharpest end of that spear: the mode you call when a production line is down, a satellite must reach its launch window, a hospital needs a field ward by Friday, or a piece of machinery simply does not fit through any scheduled freighter door. Roughly half of the world’s air freight travels in the bellies of passenger aircraft; a charter is what you book when your cargo needs the whole aircraft to itself.
Full, part and ACMI:
the three charters explained
Ask any broker what the three types of charter are and you will get this trinity. A full charter gives you the entire aircraft for a defined routing: one shipper, one payload, one mission. A part charter, or split charter, sells you a guaranteed block of a freighter that is already flying, ideal when you have 20 tonnes and the aircraft holds 100; you keep charter-grade priority without paying for empty floor. And an ACMI lease, Aircraft, Crew, Maintenance and Insurance, also called a wet lease, places a freighter and its crew at your disposal for weeks or months, flying whatever schedule you assign: this is how airlines and freight forwarders add capacity in peak season without buying aircraft.
The word itself comes from the sea: a charter party has been the contract for hiring a vessel since medieval merchant law, and shipping still speaks of voyage charters, time charters and bareboat charters. Aviation borrowed the vocabulary and compressed the timescales: what takes a ship six weeks, a long-range aircraft or a freighter does overnight. When people say sea cargo, ocean freight, the same three logics apply, only measured in weeks and TEUs instead of hours and tonnes; and the charterer, in both worlds, is simply the party who hires the craft.
From Caravan to Antonov:
the freighter fleet, decoded
Freighters are defined less by size than by how they load. Ordinary cargo doors take standard ULDs, unit load devices, the aluminium pallets and containers that make air freight fast. But the aircraft that earn legends have doors like drawbridges: the Boeing 747 freighter’s hinged nose swings open to swallow pieces over 30 metres long straight down the main deck; the Antonov An-124 kneels on its landing gear and opens at both nose and tail, with onboard cranes that lift 20-tonne pieces without any airport equipment; the Ilyushin Il-76 and the C-130 carry their own ramps into places with no ground handling at all. This is why heavy and outsize cargo is its own discipline: the question is never only how heavy, but how tall, how long, and through which door.
Indicative market rates, before positioning, fuel and handling, look like this:
| Aircraft | Indicative hourly rate | Max payload | Built for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 747-400F | $30,000 to $50,000 | up to 120 t | Nose-loading, maximum volume and outsize length |
| Boeing 777F | $35,000 to $55,000 | up to 102 t | Long-haul heavy routes, engines and dense freight |
| Airbus A330-200F | $22,000 to $38,000 | up to 65 t | Flexible mid-to-long haul cargo |
| Boeing 767-300F | $18,000 to $30,000 | up to 52 t | Medium-range distribution, e-commerce |
| Ilyushin Il-76 | $18,000 to $28,000 | up to 48 t | Own ramp, austere and unpaved strips |
| Antonov An-124 | Mission-priced, from about $60,000 | up to 120 t | Outsize champion: cranes, nose and tail doors |
| ATR 72F / turboprops | $4,000 to $7,000 | up to 8 t | Island hops, feeder legs, urgent regional parts |
| Cessna Caravan | $1,500 to $2,500 | up to 1.5 t | Small urgent shipments, short strips |
At the summit of the pyramid stood the Antonov An-225 Mriya, the only aircraft ever to lift a single 187-tonne piece, destroyed at Hostomel in 2022 and mourned by the whole industry. Its sister An-124s now carry that torch, and booking one is a project in itself: they are few, in constant demand, and quoted per mission rather than per hour. A good broker knows where each one is parked this week; that knowledge is half the product.
ULDs, floor limits and
why dimensions rule everything
Deep cargo knowledge is mostly geometry. Air freight lives on ULDs: the PMC pallet at 96 by 125 inches carrying up to about 6,800 kg, the AKE container shaped to hug a widebody’s belly, cool containers that hold pharmaceuticals at 2 to 8 °C for days on battery power. A quote is impossible without three numbers per piece: weight, dimensions and, for anything dense, the floor loading, because an aircraft floor rated at roughly 2,000 kg per square metre will refuse a compact 9-tonne press tool that a spread-out 20-tonne transformer passes easily, shored on load-spreading timbers by professional loadmasters.
Then comes chargeable weight: scheduled air freight prices whichever is greater, actual weight or volume at 167 kg per cubic metre, which is why a light but bulky shipment can cost like lead. A charter changes the arithmetic entirely: you pay for the aircraft, not the kilogram, so the break-even against scheduled freight arrives surprisingly early for urgent, dense or awkward loads. Add dangerous goods, lithium batteries, aerosols, engines with residual fuel, all governed by IATA DG regulations with their own packing, paperwork and crew notification, and you see why serious shippers hand the whole puzzle to one person with one phone number.
One aircraft,
a dozen industries at the door
Automotive is the classic: a stopped production line burns, by common industry estimates, more than a million dollars per hour, so carmakers fly gearboxes and stamping dies on urgent, go-now charters the way others send emails; the trade calls it AOG logic, aircraft on ground, borrowed from aviation’s own spare-engine emergencies. Oil and gas moves drill heads and blowout preventers to remote fields where the Il-76’s own ramp is worth more than any hub. Aerospace flies whole engines, a modern widebody turbofan is so large it travels on its own dedicated freighter. Pharma ships vaccines and biologics in active cool containers with temperature-guaranteed chains. Humanitarian teams push field hospitals and rescue gear into crisis zones where the first 72 hours decide everything, often alongside emergency response and personnel airlifts.
And then the glamorous end: Formula 1 moves on the order of 1,500 tonnes of freight between flyaway races, stage productions for world tours fill 747s with lighting rigs, film productions fly sets between continents, roadshows and event logistics run to the calendar, not the airline schedule. Racehorses and precious animals travel with grooms in climate-controlled stalls. Fashion houses fly entire collections for launch day; fresh tuna, peonies and cherries race their own biology across hemispheres. Even this week has its example: millions of certified eclipse glasses reached European pharmacies by air freight ahead of the August 12 eclipse, because a filter delivered on August 13 is worth nothing.
Cargo aviation facts worth quoting
- Air cargo carries under 1 % of world trade by tonnage but about 35 % of its value: the fast lane of globalisation.
- Roughly half of global air freight flies in the bellies of passenger aircraft; freighters and charters carry the rest, and all of the outsize.
- The An-225 Mriya, destroyed at Hostomel in 2022, held the single-piece record: a 187-tonne generator flown in one lift.
- A 747 freighter’s hinged nose accepts pieces over 30 metres long; the An-124 loads through nose and tail with its own onboard cranes.
- An idle car production line costs, by common industry estimates, over a million dollars per hour: the economics behind every AOG charter.
- Formula 1 moves on the order of 1,500 tonnes of equipment between flyaway races, much of it on chartered 777Fs.
What a cargo charter costs,
and what moves the number
The honest answer is a range with reasons. A turboprop hop with half a tonne of urgent parts can close under €10,000; a 767F rotation across Europe sits in the tens of thousands; a transcontinental 747F or 777F mission runs into the hundreds of thousands; and a multi-leg An-124 project with cranes, permits and police escorts is a seven-figure engineering feat. Five drivers move every quote: positioning, where the aircraft starts relative to your cargo; fuel, the largest single line; handling and airport fees at both ends; crew duty time and overnight costs; and paperwork, overflight permits, slots and any dangerous goods surcharges. This is precisely where a broker earns the fee: finding the freighter already positioned near your origin, or an empty leg running your direction, can cut a third off the bill.
Compare honestly with scheduled freight: if your shipment is small, flexible and hub-friendly, the airlines’ belly network is cheaper, and we will tell you so. The charter case is built on time, geometry or certainty: when the line is down, when the piece will not fit, when the launch window will not move, or when a group of shipments must arrive together as one. Every Fly with Andreea quote is fixed and all-in, positioning, crew and handling included, in writing, before you commit a single euro.
How to charter a
cargo aircraft, step by step
The process is simpler than the machinery behind it. One: define the shipment, weight, dimensions per piece, nature of the goods, any temperature or DG requirements. Two: fix the timing, ready date at origin and required delivery. Three: send it to a broker in one message; within hours you receive a shortlist of aircraft with fixed all-in prices and honest trade-offs. Four: confirm, and the broker contracts the operator, files permits, books slots and arranges ground handling and trucking at both ends. Five: a loadmaster plans the load; six: you receive live updates from wheels-up to delivery; seven: one invoice, no surprises.
What speeds everything up is the quality of your first message. The origin and destination, the total weight, the dimensions of the largest piece, and the nature of the goods: with those four facts Andreea can tell you within the hour whether your shipment needs a Caravan, a 767F or a nose-loading 747, and what it will cost to the euro. The aircraft geometry above explains why the largest piece matters most: doors decide, before prices do.
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Learn more →Cargo charter questions,
answered
What is a cargo charter?
The exclusive hire of an entire aircraft to carry your freight on your route and schedule. The full payload is dedicated to your shipment, flying point to point outside airline timetables, with routing, timing and handling under your control.
How much does it cost to charter a cargo jet?
From under €10,000 for a turboprop with urgent parts, $18,000 to $55,000 per flight hour for widebody freighters like the 767F, A330F, 747F and 777F, up to seven figures for multi-leg An-124 outsize projects. Positioning, fuel, handling, crew and permits drive the final number; every quote here is fixed and all-in.
What are the three types of charters?
Full charter (the entire aircraft for one shipper), part or split charter (a guaranteed block of space on a freighter already flying), and ACMI or wet lease (aircraft, crew, maintenance and insurance placed at your disposal for weeks or months).
What is a sea cargo charter?
The maritime original of the concept: hiring a vessel under a charter party contract, as a voyage charter (one trip), time charter (a period) or bareboat charter (the ship alone). Aviation borrowed the vocabulary and compressed six weeks of sailing into one night of flying.
What is sea cargo called?
Ocean freight or sea freight, moved as container cargo (measured in TEUs), breakbulk, bulk or ro-ro. Air cargo is its fast twin: a fraction of the tonnage, about 35 % of world trade value.
Who is the charterer in shipping?
The party who hires the vessel or aircraft from its owner or operator. In an air cargo charter, the charterer is typically the shipper, forwarder or broker who contracts the freighter for the mission.
Who pays for charter flights?
The charterer: the company or person who books the aircraft. In cargo, that is usually the shipper or their freight forwarder; the price is agreed up front as one fixed contract covering aircraft, crew, fuel and handling.
Why is it called a charter?
From the charter party (carta partita, a divided document), the medieval contract for hiring a ship, torn in two so each party held a matching half. Seven centuries later, hiring any craft, ship or aircraft, still carries the name.
What are the main types of cargo aircraft?
Production freighters (777F, 747-8F), converted passenger aircraft (767-300F, A330F, 737F), ramp-equipped military-heritage types (An-124, Il-76, C-130) for outsize and austere strips, and feeder turboprops (ATR 72F, Cessna Caravan) for regional legs.
What is AOG and why does it matter for cargo?
Aircraft on Ground: aviation’s own code for an aircraft stopped for want of a part, now shorthand for any line-down emergency. AOG charters fly gearboxes, dies and components within hours, because an idle production line costs more per hour than most aircraft.
What is a ULD?
A unit load device: the standardised pallets and containers of air freight, like the PMC pallet (96 by 125 inches, up to about 6,800 kg) and the AKE belly container. ULDs are why a widebody turns around in an hour instead of a day.
Can cargo aircraft carry oversized items?
Yes, that is the specialty of nose-loading 747Fs (pieces over 30 metres long), the An-124 with nose and tail doors plus onboard cranes, and ramp aircraft like the Il-76. The door and floor limits decide feasibility before the scales do.
How fast can a cargo charter be arranged?
For urgent go-now missions, hours: brokers track where freighters are parked and which crews are in duty time. A realistic same-day departure is routine for parts-sized shipments; even widebody missions regularly fly within 24 to 48 hours of the first call.
Can dangerous goods fly on a charter?
Yes, under IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations: correct classification, packing, documentation and crew notification. Lithium batteries, aerosols, engines with residual fuel and many chemicals fly daily; the paperwork is part of the broker’s job.
How is temperature-sensitive pharma flown?
In active cool containers that hold 2 to 8 °C (or frozen ranges) for days on battery power, with monitored handovers at each step. Charters remove the riskiest links, hub transfers and tarmac waits, from the cold chain.
Can animals travel on cargo charters?
Yes: racehorses, livestock and precious animals fly in climate-controlled stalls with grooms aboard, on routes and schedules built around the animals’ welfare rather than an airline’s timetable.
Is it cheaper to charter or use scheduled air freight?
For small, flexible, hub-friendly shipments, scheduled belly freight wins and we say so honestly. Charter wins on time, geometry or certainty: line-down urgency, pieces that fit no scheduled door, immovable deadlines, or many shipments that must arrive as one.
How much is a 2 hour private jet flight?
For passengers, a light jet runs roughly €9,000 to €14,000 for two flight hours, all-in. The same logic prices small cargo: a two-hour turboprop or light jet parts run typically closes under €10,000.
Is it cheaper to charter or own a plane?
Below roughly 200 to 250 flight hours a year, chartering wins: no crew salaries, hangarage, maintenance reserves or depreciation, and always the right aircraft size for each mission instead of one compromise airframe.
What is the cheapest plane to charter?
For cargo, a Cessna Caravan or similar single-turboprop from about $1,500 per flight hour; for passengers, a turboprop or very light jet. Small aircraft plus short sector is the budget formula in both worlds.
What destinations can a cargo charter reach?
Anywhere with a usable runway, which is the point: ramp-equipped freighters serve gravel and unpaved strips no airline touches, and 26,152+ priced routes across 180 countries are already in our system. If a runway exists, a quote exists.
Which charter airlines are available in Europe?
Dozens of licensed cargo operators fly everything from Caravans to 747Fs, alongside ACMI specialists. A broker’s value is cross-referencing all of them at once, including aircraft already positioned near your origin, rather than selling one company’s fleet.
How many types of charters are there in shipping?
Three classics: voyage charter, time charter and bareboat (demise) charter. Air cargo mirrors them as single-mission charter, ACMI/wet lease for a period, and dry lease of the aircraft alone.
What is a part charter or split charter?
A guaranteed block of a freighter that is already flying your direction: charter-grade priority and handling for 10 or 20 tonnes without paying for the whole aircraft. Brokers assemble these quietly across their networks.
What information do I need for a cargo charter quote?
Four facts: origin and destination, total weight, dimensions of each piece (especially the largest), and the nature of the goods including any temperature or DG requirements. With those, Andreea prices your mission within the hour, fixed and all-in.