Air freight · rates
What drives an air freight rate
The structure of the price, in the order the parts usually matter, and a plain statement of the figures this desk does not have and will not invent.
- Priced on
- Chargeable weight
- Density break
- 166.67 kg/m³
- Common weight breaks
- 45, 100, 300, 500, 1000 kg
- Rates published here
- None
What this desk is. OnBoard Courier places on board couriers: a vetted person carries the consignment in the cabin on a scheduled passenger flight and hands it over against a signature. The desk does not operate air freight, does not hold an airline contract and is not a forwarder. Air freight enquiries sent through this site are passed to a vetted forwarding partner, and the pages here are written so that you can tell which of the two you actually need.
What a rate is applied to
An air freight price is a rate per kilo multiplied by chargeable weight, plus surcharges, plus local charges at both ends, subject to a minimum. Most of the variation people argue about lives in the multiplier rather than the rate.
Chargeable weight is the greater of gross and volumetric weight, and volumetric weight in air cargo is the volume in cubic centimetres divided by 6000. The chargeable weight page works it through on a real crate. If you want to change an air freight bill, changing the packing usually moves more money than negotiating the rate.
The drivers, in the order they usually matter
Chargeable weight and the weight break
Rates step down in bands, commonly around 45, 100, 300, 500 and 1000 kilos. Because the steps are large, a shipment just below a break can cost more in total than one just above it. A good forwarder quotes the lower total automatically. It is a fair question to ask whether they did.
Density
At a divisor of 6000 the break is 166.67 kg per cubic metre. Below that density you are buying space and paying for air. This is why the same 200 kg costs very different amounts depending on what it is packed in.
Capacity on the lane, on the day
A large share of general air cargo moves in the belly of passenger aircraft, so cargo capacity follows the passenger schedule. A lane with many daily departures behaves like a market. A lane with three services a week behaves like an auction. The corridor pages on this site publish the scheduled frequency and the number of operating carriers for each pair, which is the closest honest proxy for that.
Direction
Trade lanes are rarely balanced, and the price of a lane in one direction often has little to do with the price in the other. A quote taken from a colleague who shipped the other way is not a benchmark.
Surcharges and local charges
Fuel and security surcharges are quoted per kilo and change independently of the rate. Terminal handling, customs entry, screening, documentation, collection and delivery are local charges at each end. An all in figure and a rate per kilo are not comparable numbers, and half of all quotation arguments come from comparing one with the other.
The commodity
Dangerous goods, temperature control, live animals, valuables and outsize each attract their own handling and their own rate treatment. Some of them restrict which aircraft may carry the shipment, which restricts capacity, which moves the price before any surcharge is added.
Season and event
Air cargo has a pronounced peak in the last quarter of the year on many lanes, and rates respond to events that remove capacity. Neither is predictable enough for this site to publish an index of, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling one.
What this desk will and will not tell you
It will tell you the structure, which is what this page is. It will tell you the scheduled frequency and the operating carriers on a corridor, because it holds that data and publishes it dated. It will tell you a firm hand carry price in about fifteen minutes, because it controls the airfare, the courier and its own time.
It will not tell you an air freight rate, a rate per kilo, a fuel surcharge or a transit time it has not measured. Not out of caution but because it does not hold them. An air freight enquiry sent through this site goes to a vetted forwarding partner who does.
Questions people actually ask
01Why will nobody give me a rate on this site?
Because this desk does not buy air cargo capacity, does not hold airline contracts and does not have a rate to give. A number published here would be a guess dressed up as a quotation. Send the enquiry through the form and it goes to a vetted forwarding partner who can price it and honour the price.
02What is the single biggest driver?
Chargeable weight, because everything else is a rate applied to it. The second biggest is which weight break the shipment lands in, and the third is capacity on the lane on the day. Density beats urgency more often than people expect.
03Why did the quote go up between Friday and Monday?
Air cargo rates on many lanes are quoted for short validity, sometimes days, because the underlying capacity is allocated close to departure. A quote with no stated validity is not really a quote. Ask for the validity in writing at the same time as the number.
04Is a freighter cheaper than a passenger belly?
Not inherently. They are different capacity with different economics. Belly capacity exists because a passenger flight was going anyway, so it is cheap when passenger schedules are full and disappears when they are cut. Freighter capacity is dedicated, takes shapes and weights a belly cannot, and is priced accordingly. On most lanes the cheaper option on a given day is whichever one has space.
05Does a hand carry have a rate card?
It has a price built from an airfare, a courier and desk time, quoted per movement rather than per kilo. The desk quotes a firm figure for a hand carry, which it can honour because it controls all three inputs. That is exactly why it will not quote air freight, where it controls none of them.
Where this came from
- Scheduled network, airlines and frequencies: AeroDataBox scheduled route statistics as held by this site, retrieved 2026-09-07. It is a snapshot rather than a live timetable, it includes some all cargo operators but is not a complete freighter schedule, and a carrier that is not listed may still fly the pair.
- Distances: Great circle, computed from published airport coordinates. They are shorter than a flown track and are not routing distances.
- Block times: Modelled, not measured: great circle distance times a track factor of 1.06, divided by a cruise speed of 720, 830 or 880 km/h by distance band, plus thirty minutes of taxi across the two ends. This is the same model the route calculator on this site uses. A real timetable will differ.
- Industrial sites: Public company information, checked 2026-09-07. Nothing here states or implies that any company named is a customer of OnBoard Courier or of any operator.
- Air cargo rules and definitions: The ICAO Technical Instructions and the IATA Dangerous Goods Regulations for dangerous goods, IATA Resolution 600a for the air waybill, the Montreal Convention 1999 for carrier liability, and Incoterms 2020. Where this site holds no figure of its own it says so rather than inventing one.
Who publishes this. OnBoard Courier is a hand carry placement desk in Dubai. It does not fly air freight. These pages exist because the desk is asked to rescue air freight that has run out of time often enough to have learned where the line between the two sits, and because a comparison written by somebody who sells only one of the two options is not a comparison. Found an error? Tell us and we will correct it.
Air freight, the comparison · Corridors · The Atlas · Route calculator