How to move goods by air

If you send freight by air, it will need to be protected from various handling processes that happen en route. It has been estimated that a package can be loaded, re-loaded and stowed up to 60 times during an international transit. This makes good quality packaging for air cargo essential.

How to prepare goods for air transport

When planning to package your airfreight goods, you should consider the following:

• Make sure that your outer packaging is appropriate, strong and secure - will your product withstand damage if other, heavier packages are stacked on top of yours?
• Stabilise your goods within the packaging - use a filling material, such as expanded polystyrene beads or bubble wrap.
• Try to gather your smaller air cargo into a larger package or pallet - this reduces stress on individual items and reduced the risk of smaller packages getting lost in transit.
• Check that your destination country hasn't banned the use of certain packaging materials - eg many countries require packaging made from wood products to be treated for infestation and marked to this effect.

When packing goods for air cargo, you should also bear in mind that they will be moved by road between premises and airports, and often held in storage en route.

Road transportation has a particular set of packaging, paperwork, insurance and safety considerations - see moving goods by road.

To make sure you have covered all eventualities for regular and dangerous goods, see our section on transporting your goods.