There are some things which, by their very nature, have to be shipped by air. There are a number of factors that lead to this situation. We are looking, for instance, at products that are very highly perishable, so that any attempts to ship them by water would lead to their ruination whilst in transit. We are also looking at otherwise non-perishable products, but which, because of the urgency with which they are required, have to be shipped by air in order to get where they are required on time. Being a garment manufacturer for instance, you may take up an order for Christmas garments, say somewhere in July, keep up with production only to realize when delivery is nigh that you cannot manage to get the garments completed and shipped by water before the Christmas due date. In a situation like this, you would also know that any ideas about delivering the garments later wouldn't be entertained, seeing that the order was specifically for Christmas. Ordinarily, you would have shipped the garments by water. But seeing the urgency of the situation, this is one of the situations when use of a private air charter for cargo freight may be well warranted.

In sum then, there are two types of situations in which use of private air charter for cargo freight would be considered rational. The first would be where the products you have for shipment are those of a nature that makes air freight mandatory. In this domain are things like horticultural products as well as medications. Keep them in freight for any lengthy period of time, and you can be certain that you will have nothing usable when you eventually get them where they are needed. The second situation would be where, as previously described, you have products that would otherwise be shipped by sea, but where due to some 'exceptional circumstances' you have to ship them by air.

The question which arises at this juncture is as to why use private air charter: why, for instance, not use the numerous cargo airlines that are also in operation.

The answer to the second question would lie come up when a keen calculation shows that shipment by private air charter is cheaper than shipment by those cargo airlines. There are actually numerous situations in which this is a possibility - especially where we are looking at relatively large amounts of cargo that need to be shipped for relatively short distance freight. Shipment by aircraft from the large cargo freight airlines makes sense for relatively small shipments over large distances. But for large quantities of cargo, needed for shipment over small distances, the cargo airline option may not make a lot of sense.

There is still another situation in which use of the private air charter can make a lot of sense. This is where, in spite of calculations showing that you are better off using a cargo airline's aircraft, you discover that you simply can't find space on any scheduled cargo aircraft (seeing that they tend to be booked well in advance). In a situation like this, rather than lose out altogether, you may decide to make use of private air charter to transport the cargo in question.